Engine Test, Wing Root Fairings, Paint Booth

Hours 98
Total Hours 1689


The first thing I did on my two weeks off of the rig is do some testing on my engine. I had been experiencing some plug fowling on my previous runs and I just wanted to do some general maintenance items that will be required for my condition inspection. I need to do a condition inspection before I can get an Airworthiness Certificate from the DAR that will inspect my plane before I can fly it.

Although the engine had really ran good on my previous runs, other than the plug fowling, I wanted to check the fuel flow from each injector to see how balanced they were. After I cleaned and checked each injector nozzle, I connected them back to the injector lines and routed them to four Mason Jars I had found. Three matching and the fourth was fairly close. I pushed full throttle and full rich on my control cables and turned on the boost pump and collected fuel in all the jars. I believe I let the boost pump run for 5 minutes.  

This is what I collected. I measured all the gas in each jar. The most full jar and the least full jar was within 1.5 ounces of each other. After the reading I have done, I believe these to be fairly close but I can use this test in the future if I want to work on balancing the injectors better and running the engine lean of peak. I needed to clean the injectors anyway for my condition inspection, so this test didn't take much additional time and was interesting. I cleaned the plugs and rolled it out and cranked it up. I let it warm up, checked the mags, and adjusted my idle speed and mixture to 700 rpm. I then leaned the mixture adjustment screw until I had about 20 to 30 rpm gain just before the engine shut down when pulling the mixture control to idle cut off. I then installed my cowl and ran the engine again checking mags and the CS prop. I ran the engine at 2200 rpm for a short period watching my EGT's and my CHT's very closely. I had the tail tied down and the nose into the wind. I ran it to full throttle two separate times for about a minute before I had to idle back because of the number 1 cylinder nearing 400 degrees. Both times as I advanced the throttle to wide open with the stick back and hard an the brakes, I watched the engine rpm climb to 2730 for a brief second then fall back to 2650 as the prop gov kicked in. I believe the CS prop is adjusted well enough until I can test it on a true take off roll so I am not going to mess with it now. I will remember on that first flight, to advance my throttle slow enough to let the prop gov stay ahead of the engine. I believe I am satisfied with the engine now. Both run ups were without the boost pump and I changed fuel tanks between the run ups to assure I had no fuel plumbing problems. I then pushed the plane back in the hanger. I de-cowled the hot engine in 6 minutes! All the work I've done trying to make the hinge pins easy to remove has paid off! I then removed the bottom plugs and checked the compression on each cylinder. 75/80-76/80-75/80-76/80. This is the first time I had checked the compression when the engine was warmed up. The engine was last run in 2013 before I test ran it for the first time several months ago. I am going to continue with finishing this airplane now and quit fooling with the engine. I checked the cowl for rubs. The rear left corner of my baffle frame had rubbed. I simply rounded the corner on it and solved that problem. I safety wired the drilled bolts on the snorkle-fuel servo mating and tightened the alternator belt. I still want to beef up my exhaust hanger and will order some parts to get that done before the first flight. I may order some fine wire plugs so I will not have to worry about that plug fouling as much. Idling is probably causing most of it but I do try to lean it out.

I do not know why I waited so long to install these covers. My hands hurt after pulling all those pop rivets.

I fitted, drilled, and trimmed the wing root fairings.

The time came to disassemble the plane for painting. My cousin is a vinyl graphics guy so I sent him this picture with the yardstick taped to the side of the fuselage. He need the picture so he can design a red vinyl stripe to be applied after the all white paint job.

Here is a computer model of the paint scheme I have planned. The plane will be painted Insignia White with black checkers on the rudder and the bottom of the flaps. The rest of the red trim will be vinyl so I can change it later if I get tired of the way it looks.

Well I spent a Sunday afternoon taking the empennage off and took the wings off so Nancy could help with those. Then spent all day Monday installing nutplates in the wings for the wing root fairings. Also tapped the holes for the tie down rings with 3/8" tap. I built some mounting plates to attach the wings to some sawhorses so I can swivel them when I paint. Then I started on the paint booth you see in the background. I built it 13'x24' with 2x4's. I can always use 2x4 lumber on the farm after this painting is over. I had bought it several months earlier along with florescent lights, wire, screws, and a box of 20'x100' 6 ml plastic sheet.

I spent 3 1/2 days building this paint booth. Here is looking at it from the loft in my hanger. I have a door in this end and on the other end I left a flap big enough to get the fuselage in and out later. 13x24 is big enough to have enough room to spray on both sides of the fuselage and still have room to back up a little.

I put 4-8' and two 4' florescent  lights up and it still could use more. I may build me a couple of 4' lights to put on a stand and make portable. I put two box fans with filters pushing air in and one 20" high capacity fan pulling out the other end. If I turn the two box fans on, the plastic walls will pooch out. then I turn the sucking fan on and they return to neutral. I believe this neutral pressure will keep dirt from being sucked in or paint particles from escaping into my hanger.

I may add another box fan later but the room seems to have good airflow. I don't want the fans to blow at me when I'm spraying. This is the end I will bring the fuselage in at.

This is the 20" fan pulling thru the rectangular duct I built out of plywood. The flow makes a right turn then exits the hanger out of a 55 gal barrel I cut out. I cut a hole in the steel sheet of the building. I made a cover to cover the hole when it is not in use. The 6hp compressor and 60 gal tank that provides air for spraying is actually in the loft. I have the air piped down both sides of the hanger thru 3/4" pvc pipe. I had this old tank from an old compressor set up that I quit using years ago. I cleaned the tank up and will use it to provide more air storage and a water/oil sump to help keep the air clean and dry. The air enters near the bottom and exits at the top and enters my Devilbiss qc3 air filter dryer. All new hoses from there, one for the paint gun and one to blow things off with.

I will be using the Stewart Systems paint system. Eko Prime and EkoCrylic Polyurethane water based paint. I've heard good and not so good things about application of the paint. I believe I can make it work if I can keep my parts uncontaminated and take my time learning how to paint. I have never painted anything other than tractors and farm implements and did a pretty poor job on those but I'm going to give this my best shot. If all else fails, I bought a DA sander and a buffer and plan to cut a buff my way to fame!

My first go at spraying parts! The primer spraying of these parts went great! I was going to shoot the primer one afternoon and shoot the color next morning, boy was I wrong! I thought I had these parts very close to finished with all the epoxy coatings but boy was I wrong. The primer brought out all those pinholes and little imperfections that was hidden from me. Some of the parts looked so smooth like the gear leg fairings so  I only put one coat of cut back epoxy on them to fill in pinholes and the primer revealed pinholes everywhere! The other parts were not so bad but they had scattered pinholes so I had my work cut out for me. On top of that, I had plenty of block sanding to do the smooth some things out.

The gear leg fairings were full of pinholes! I took a small bowl of EkoPrime and my plastic spreader and just scooped up the primer and started working it all over the parts. Back and forth, dragging it into the pinholes. It actually worked quite well. There were some stubborn ones but I finally got them all filled. The primer was dry a couple of hours later and I sanded them smooth. I will shoot them again with another light coat of primer to make sure I didnt open any pinholes back up sanding them.

For the scattered pinholes in the wheelpants and wing tips I used Bondo Professional Glazing Putty. This two part putty is sold at O'Rileys and was recommended by Dan at Stewarts Systems. I would not use it to fill any thing bigger than a pinhole and for that, it works great. You have to mix small batches like the one above and work fast cause it will harden in just a few minutes. Cures fast and sands easy. Well, all said and done, instead of spraying my first color coat the next day, I spent 14 hours filling and sanding my arms off! I will shoot another thick coat on the parts I had to block sand down to level and a thin coat on the parts that I had to fill pinholes on. Then they will all need another sanding with 320 grit to get ready for the topcoat. I did actually paint a 2'x2' panel and an old vertical stabilizer somebody gave me to practice on but I was too ashamed of the results to take pictures! The color was great but the runs were many! Apparently, this painting isn't as easy as I thought and will probably take much longer than I thought! I will read and study about it for the next two weeks and practice some more and I will eventually get this plane finished!