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<< Lancair Builders' Mail List >>
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We are new to the list and purchased our Lancair 360 a year ago with 100
hrs. We just tore it apart for our first annual and rebuilt a lot of
things with our local certified mechanic and avionics guys..... Perhaps
our experience can be helpful to builders...
1. We have never had any nose wheel shimmy problems (plane was
finished in 95).
2. We did have a lot of electrical connection problems and I urge
builders to pay close attention to that area - eventhough it is almost the
last thing and you want to get in the air! Don't use spade fittings unless
you have too - use round ones over every screw. Solder to make the
connections. Ground it several places. Until we did that our Vision
Microsystems instruments were varying all over the place. The manifold
pressure was useless and rpm fluctuated etc in high humidity. All of it
was due to bad connections.
3. We also moved the circuit breaker for the hydraulics up front
where it belongs instead of back next to the pump.. Also put in an idiot
light to warn of alternator failure(Spruce Co.)- after the alternator
failed and I didn't notice anything until I had a brownout in the air! We
also need a bigger alternator than the 35 amp job we have but don't have
much room - any ideas??
4. One major screw-up - the avionics were all on their own busbar
with a switch = great. Except that that bus bar actually was part of the
main bus bar structure, and somehow during the annual (at about 250 + hrs)
we broke the bus bar between the avionics and master. That made some
things touch that shouldn't have and on start up we toasted the entire
avionics stack with super high voltage with the avionics master in the off
position! The main radios had protection diodes that protected them
somewhat but the audio panel actually blew up and smoked. The transponder
was a $450 redo and the encode was toast.... We recommend separating the
avionics bus bar from the master bus bar with some space!
5. Also it got real hot in the plane in the summer so we put in
large "black ball" type nozzels (Spruce again) directly on the air inlet
scoops - works great. The 3/4 inch tubing leading to the nozzles on the
panel never gave enough air; now we have to turn the air flow down.
6. The 360 overheated last year in the summer (450+ and climbing on
#3 cylinder on take off. Thats the back cylinder on the pasenger side). We
have helped that a lot with fanatical attention to the fit between the
cowling and the baffles - we changed to the red silicone rubber baffling
material and worked hard to get a perfect fit. We also used a lot of tubes
of the red engine caulking to stop up even the smallest holes - we wanted
all the air to go around those cylinders. Seems to be working.
7. We had two leaks with the header tank - first one was there
when we got it - the canopy was putting pressure on the seal when the
canopy was in the full up position (the hinge was contacting the header
tank). Fixed that by pulling a vacuum on the header tank with a vacuum
cleaner and sucking epoxy into the crack - then added some reinforcing
fiber glass to protect that area - solved the problem so far but we are
careful not to let wind blow the canopy forward and put too much pressure
on the seal. Second leak happened when we put new half inch black
insulation on the firewall. We got this too close to the header tank so
that when we tried to put it back on we "had" to use some pressure on the
sides to make the piano hinges get in line. That sprung the seal in
another place - fixed it the same way.
8. The sight tubing for the header tank fuel level was clear
plastic but it had gotten hard and brittle - Lancair said to replace it
with yellow tubing that is supposed to resist gasoline much better. We
did- now we have trouble seeing the fuel level in some light conditions.
Seems like we need a small colored float on the top of the gas inside the
tubing???
9. The battery was installed where the rudder pedals would
normally be on the passenger side. The buliders did this because this was
one of the first kits with the new big tail and when they put the battery
in the back, it put the CG out of whack. We would like to move it but the
CG calculations do not work out - we would have to add 20 - 30 lbs of
weight somewhere in the engine compartment area. Having the battery under
your feet restricts us to carrying short people like us (but the tall guys
got the play basketball so why should they have all the fun....) Any of
you guys have this problem with the battery???
10. Also had a problem with the axels on the mains - they allowed
the tire to move back and forth sideways - the mechanic finally got new
axels from Lancair that fixed the problem - Matco was no help...
11. We replaced all the hydraulic hoses - Lancair now uses better
quality than was on our plane. We had a couple of seaping leaks before.
Tracy Wilkins
Director of Biotechnology
Va Tech, Blacksburg, Va 24061
540-231-6935 231-7126 FAX
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LML homepage: http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
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