Airworthy ...Almost

After 6.5 years, it's finally time for an airworthiness inspection. Most of the folks I know have used a Designated Airworthiness Representative (DAR) to do their inspection. Primarily because the FAA is thought to be too busy and short staffed to do such things, especially for Experimentals. Undeterred, I asked a member of the Flight Standards District Office staff while at one of the WINGS programs about arranging an inspection. Do they still do it? "Sure, contact so-and-so." So I did. I ended up working with Eric Minis from the Greensboro FSDO. He was very knowledgeable and friendly. We agreed that 7/23/04 would be the day, and he directed me to a checklist to use as a guide to prepare for the inspection. He said to expect the inspection to take about four hours. (Yikes!)

So, the pressure is on. I have about two weeks to finish every last detail of the plane. AHH! Pam will agree I was slightly stressed. I put in some late nights at the hanger, but I was determined to make the deadline. The night before Jack let me borrow his aircraft scales, and Len and I weighed the plane. It came in at 1106 pounds. A little more than expected, but Van's confirmed it was a reasonable weight for my configuration (O-360, Hartzell, minimal IFR panel, leather painted interior, no exterior paint). With that, I was able to my weight and balance and finalize my POH.

I had until 4 PM the day of the inspection. So I went over the plane again, cleaned up the hanger a little, organized the paperwork, etc. I had my builder's log on a laptop computer and slideshow going of all the pictures representing 6.5 years of work. At 3:30 PM I sat down with some cool water (it was more than 100º F in the hanger) and waited.

Eric shows up right on time and gets to work. His initial impression of the plane is that of admiration. His inspection continues, referring to the checklist to ensure he doesn't miss anything. At one point he calls it a "production airplane". I ask if this is good or bad. He laughs. Yes, it was meant as a compliment.

The last step is to pull it out of the hanger and start it and work all the controls. A little surprising, but no problem I thought, as I have run it several times before with no problems. Once cranked, I demonstrate the flight controls, throttle, mixture, and ignitions all work as expected. I go to cycle the prop. Nothing. Repeat many times nothing. Sh*t. Engine temps are getting a little too warm, so I shut down and we scratch our heads about the prop. We check the travel of the prop cable, twist it manually, and a couple other things and they all seem normal. In the end, Eric leaves without issuing the airworthiness certificate. Sh*t again. I'm suppose to call him when I get it working and he'll come back out to finish the inspection. Let the trouble-shooting begin.

I vaguely remember something about the gasket being an issue when I put the governor on many months ago. I looked through my notes, but only found a couple pictures. This was the troubling one.

I sent this and a couple other pictures to John and Jim at Southwest Aero in Washington state. They agreed that the gasket was wrong, and blocked the oil holes. They overnighted my a correct gasket. In preparation for the new gasket, I removed the governor. (It is significantly less fun doing this when the engine is on the plane; the firewall is in the way!) Look at what I found -- the correct gasket!

So I did several other tests to try to determine where the problem was. I bought a 0-400 PSI gauge and hooked it up at various spots to verify pressure. I took the prop to US Propeller. It tested fine on the bench. So the problem appeared to be internal to the engine. I called my engine builder, Bob Barrows. I finally reached him at Oshkosh. We discussed the classic problems like the plugs in the crank, etc. A couple more days of head scratching and testing pass. Frustration builds...

After Bob returns from Oshkosh, he says there are some crankcases with a drain hole for use with a solid crank and fixed pitch prop. If those crankcases were used in a constant speed prop application, that hole has to be plugged. Otherwise you'd see problems like mine. He knows this because this same thing happened to him eight years ago. Swell. So, after running the serial numbers of the engine case past Lycoming, it's learned that it used to be used on a O-360-A4. This uses a solid crank, and has the drain hole near the front of the crank. The only way to verify this theory and fix the issue is to REMOVE THE ENGINE FROM THE PLANE AND TOTALLY TEAR IT DOWN!! After spending months working on the FWF portion of this project, and the FAA being ready to deem the plane airworthy if I could just cycle the prop.... The whole situation is just about making my physically ill. I cannot freaking believe it. Uhhhg!!!!!!!

Complete FWF.

Off with the prop, for the Nth time.

The whole engine was disconnected in about five hours.

Major frustration!

Bob retrieved the engine with his BearHawk and took it back to VA for teardown.

The amount of frustration and the range of emotions felt during this little detour is tough to describe. I was so close to being airworthy and my first flight!! I was incredibly ticked off at Bob. He was convinced the problem wasn't his doing. Finally when I eliminated all the other components and we determine it was his problem, he wasn't nearly as excited as I was. It's taken my a couple weeks, but I've cooled off. I've realized Bob is just mellow. Sometimes too mellow. Anyway, he is standing behind his work and slowly resolving the problem. Although I'd like to see the whole situation fixed "yesterday", that's not reality. I guess the good news is it can't get any worse.

August 9th -
Update: Bob confirms that the drain hole is the problem. He's tapped and plugged the hole in the case and all is well in that regard. However, while inside the engine he noticed some unusual wear on the cam and two of the lifters. He said the lifters aren't rotating in the hole so that they wear evenly against the cam. Not sure why, they rotate freely by hand. The engine has been run a total of 1.2 hours and this wear is definitely abnormal. The lifters and the cam have been sent back to ECI for analysis and possible warranty work or replacement. More delays... :(

August 28th -
Update II: Bob returned the engine today. The drain hole fix turned out to be the easy part of the repair. The time consuming part was the cam. After speanding a lot of time shipping the parts to ECI and waiting on their analysis, they finally said that dirt had ruined one of the lifters, and thus the cam. These parts were replaced at ECI's expense.

So...where did this dirt come from? Bob's leading theory is that the cam/lifter problem was caused by my use of an oil filter. Bob built and sold me the engine with an oil screen, no filter. He preferred that the screen be used for the first 50 hours, then a filter could be used. I got the impression this was his personal opinion and not a steadfast rule -- after all, engines from Van's, Aero Sport, and others, all ship with filters. So what's the big deal? The fewer times I need to crack open this engine to install filters and such the better, so I'll put it on from the start. This was my logic. That's fine logic except for two things. 1. Bob doesn't run his engines on a test stand before delivery. Van's (Lycoming) and Aero Sport do. 2. Aviation filters contain a bypass for when the oil is especially thick and excerpt too much pressure on the filter. Result: unfiltered oil and contaminated lifters.

So, I've taken the filter off and replaced it with the screen, per Bob's advice.

24 hours after receiving the repaired engine, it was almost ready to run. Thanks to Len for helping mount it.