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Well, Kelly you and Al are both correct. The
verdict is in and it wasn't the plastic plenum! Took off the throttle body
and looked inside Plenum and as good as new, no missing pieces , no cracks,
nothing missing. A bit of relief that it wasn't the plenum.
So I took out the sparkplugs and rotated the prop
until I could see each apex seal - surprisingly they all looked to be in one
piece, in other words there was no indication that any had shattered and
scattered pieces through the chamber - so far that is looking good.
However, the #1 rotor apex seals did appear to have
two nicks about the width of the bottom of a spark plug - but the seals appear
to be intact - however there is no compression, Nada! on #1 rotor. By they
way I reported the rear rotor EGT went south, well its the rear rotor in my
aircraft which is of course the front rotor in the car. My EGT is
reference to rotor position in the aircraft, so the EGT for the "Rear" rotor is
actually for rotor #1.
I looked at the trailing spark plug for #1 and no
evidence of any damage and looking down the spark plug hole it appears that hole
is probably too small for the electrode to stick down through. The Leading
spark plug showed no damage, but the rear of the ground electrode (the curved
part attached to the side of the plug appeared to be burnished.
It appears that Al's assessment may be correct that
particularly because of the apparent orientation of the electrode when I screw
it into the hole ending up such that the apex hit the curved back part rather
than the end pointed toward the center electrode. It appears the apex seal
did bounce over that curve part for a while and either the apex seals finally
gave way or the springs under them did. Perhaps Lynn would know if its
possible to break the springs while leaving the seal intact.
#2 rotor does have compression although it seems a
bit puny, you can hear the pop when you pull it through whereas you get nothing
from rotor #1 If the #2 rotor's apex seals were hitting the
sparkplug they appeared to come off better although I suspect that they may have
one of the two springs under the seal bent/broken. Will know
tomorrow.
I took off the exhaust to get a better look, but
could discern nothing further, except it appears that (preliminary assessment)
that the springs supporting the seals may be shot.
By the time I got the engine off it had been
7 straight hours out in the sun working on it, so got it loaded in the van and
headed home.
It appears by my misreading the sparkplug number (
the G sort of looks like a Q {:>)), I did it to myself. I did hold the
stock plug up for comparison and the length appeared the same - and besides I
thought I had the right plug, so did not go for the calipers. I will
measure them just to see how much difference there is.
Regarding the creative suggestion (which I really
liked) to just leave the engine in the Van and drive the van to Sun &
Fun. I spent 5 hours last week putting a new water pump in this van which
is 18 years old and over 130,000 miles
on it with shot shocks and no air conditioning. Call me a wimp but not NO
- but H____ No! I won't go {:>).
Sorry fellows,
I am more disappointed that you are about not getting to go. But, I found
out today the airport I limped to and landed on is practically unattended
as the FBO had a falling out with the county council and is moving on. May
be one reason that radios were stolen out of aircraft there - in any case,
I do not intend to leave the aircraft there a moment longer than
necessary. although with the radios, prop and engine removed I wouldn't
think anyone would mess with it - but you never know.
I intend to tear the engine down tomorrow. I
take some photos of the insides to let everyone see the outcome.
Best Regards
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 10:16
AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] No Joy on Sun &
Fun{:<(
Ed,
Al beat me to it !! I thought there was a letter wrong on those
plugs from
memory (which is slipping).......Was about to look it up in my saved
info....
Are you going to use up all possible failure modes before the rest of us
??
Kidding of course.......So glad you are a cool head in these situations
!!
Best Regards
--
Kelly Troyer
Dyke
Delta/13B/RD1C/EC2
--------------
Original message from "Ed Anderson" <eanderson@carolina.rr.com>:
--------------
Thanks, Al,
Yes, I truly mean it when I say so long as the
problem permits me to get back on the ground safely, I am not
grousing. S__T does happen and all you can do it try to avoid the worst
of it {:>)
B9EGV? Humm, I apparently misread
one of the e mails I had on the plugs topic as B9EQV - wouldn't that be the
kicker if all this came about because I misread one letter. However
since they are both "E" = 3/4" length they should(maybe) be
interchangeable. I did hold one up to the stock plug and
eyeballed it but had no reason to dig out the calipers and measure
it.
Thanks, I had not thought of that
possibility as to why the delay in damage (if it were caused by too long
plugs) as the seals jumping over the plug part until becoming too
damaged. The rear rotor went first
which then started a vibration which may have helped the front rotor's
demise along.
Well, going out this AM to hopefully pull the
engine load it in the Van and get it back to the shop. Am going to
check on the plugs and the plenum - could be something else I guess - but
not a clue as to what it might be.
Will keep everyone informed.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 1:10
AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: No Joy on
Sun & Fun{:<(
, I had just put
in 4 new B9EQV spark plugs the previous day.
Ed;
Sorry to hear
of your disappointing trip. But, hey; s__t happens. You did
the right thing, of course. When the engine isn’t running properly,
you take the nearest airport. It’s great that you and your plane got
down just fine.
If it is the
plugs, perhaps it’s possible that the seals jumped over the protruding
plugs for a while until they became damaged enough for loss of
compression? Pulling a leading plug should tell the story on that.
How did you choose the B9EQV? Did you know of someone else using
them? I’m running the B9EGV and they are fine.
Al
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