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Ok, an update.
Turns out I rebuilt an engine for no reason other than for the experience. seems no damage from my problems on first flight. decided to replace all the soft parts but as I live just a bit West of most on this forum, it makes it a bit hard to get parts, even Mazda could not deliver orings without 3 week delay so I just bought some viton cord for the coolant rings and made my own. they seem to be holding up Ok for now. When I reinstalled the engine, filled it up with coolant and pressure tested, it leaked like a bastard past a hose clamp on the rear iron. The fitting is usually used for cabin heat in the car but I got it blocked off and didn't touch it during the rebuild, so now I'm pretty sure this is where the coolant leaked from on that first flight. Have now installed a fence in the ducting to separate oil and coolant radiators and opened up the air intake about 50% bigger to try and get more air in. Its the dead of winter here, so daily temps are about 20c , doesn't get much colder only hotter as summer approaches so I need to get this thing flying soon to be able to take advantage of the cool temps. Took it out onto the main rwy for a fast taxi run, its a long long taxi to get to the threshold so temps rise and hopes drop, but on the rwy temps are 140 coolant 180 oil at 70kts. so confidant I can probably stabilize the temps in flight now. But I tell yer, if I ever catch that bloody Murphy bloke, I'll make him squeal. for some reason now everytime I transmit on the radio the engine runs crook, let go of the ptt and all good again, and the fast run down the paddock done something to one of my wheels as there was a horrible noise from down there on the taxi back to the shed. so I got things to sort out first tomorrow. Andrew |
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