If you’re like many pilots who fly their machines to Oshkosh for the great migration, you probably took the cowling off before leaving for Wisconsin—looked things over, cleaned your plugs, changed your oil … all in the name of making sure that you didn’t break down on your round trip to and from the show. But how about the “after-show” poke-around? With an additional 20 or 30 hours of hard flying on your aircraft, what might have worn, gotten loose, or developed a leak?
I generally do this post-trip poke-around after unpacking, doing laundry, and settling in for a few days. To be honest, I usually don’t go to the hangar for a week after my total immersion into all things aviation at the show. But I grabbed a soda and snacks the other day to go have a look at my still almost-new F1 Rocket. It has 55 hours now, and it was a good chance to look around under the hood again anyway, so off came the cowl.
Before I pulled it, I noticed a few drips of oil on the hangar floor, right under the rear end of an exhaust pipe, so I suspected something was seeping or leaking. Since the lower cowl had no oil on it anywhere, I figured a small leak was dripping on the pipes, and sure enough, the right rear sump flange area had some fresh oil that was dripping on the pipe on that side. It was easy to determine that the actual leak was from an oil drain-back line above the sump flange, so I put a tighter set of clamps on the hose and cleaned things up, and we’ll see if that stops the leak. Remember though— this was not a new engine; it had about 270 hours on it before installation—the point where many Lycomings start marking their territory.
The only other problems I spotted were on the mixture and throttle cables. These are Cablecraft standard push-pull cables with a nylon inner core for smooth operation, and a green nylon outer jacket for … well, no one knows why it’s there, actually. But in this case, running between the two exhaust pipes, the nylon was beginning to melt and drip—and I know that eventually, this leads to the inner nylon core becoming heat-damaged, and the cables will need replacing. To prevent this, I pulled out some firesleeve I had on hand. Firesleeve isn’t really designed as an insulator, but it is a layer you can put onto a cable to keep the intense radiated heat from the pipes from impinging directly on the cable jacket. Installation required removing the cable ends from the fuel injection servo, taking everything apart, sliding the insulation on, then reassembling and readjusting the controls. About an hour’s work all in all.
All the hoses and hose connections looked good (put a wrench on them), and the ignition wires and sensor wires still looked new … the cowl was reinstalled and the airplane was deemed ready for further flight! Post-trip maintenance and inspection is a handy tool to make sure nothing bad is developing in your aircraft—remember that as an Experimental/Amateur-Built category builder/owner, YOU are responsible for the safe condition of your craft!
As long as the turboencabulator maintained strict correlation to the parallel hemiparaboloid without causing undue perturbations, you should be good to go!
Paul, don’t forget about the Blue Max option from a Cablecraft distributor
Paul, this is a subject that I think gets too little attention. IMHO, a good post flight is better than a good preflight. For one, discrepancies found on a post flight can be corrected on a more timely basis, and not cause a flight cancellation vice on a preflight. Also, as an owner, finding discrepancies sooner rather than later keeps the airplane in tip top shape, enhances safety and can be more cost effective.
I recently had a valve cover leak that I struggled to fix, but eventually got the right combination of parts (new valve cover and gasket) that finally solved the problem. I was able to look under the cowling of my Gamebird where the exhaust stack protrude (much like your F1) and was able to the see where the oil was collecting on the inside of the cowling after a flight.
Great article, thanks.
Thanks for the article Paul. I’ve been keenly watching your build as my own F1 Rocket is near to flying (been saying that for a long time, but it’s now true). We had the same melting shroud issue on a syndicate RV-8, predicating replacement cables (from McFarlane). Hence, I had my own Vetterman exhaust pipes black ceramic coated inside and out (except where the heat shrouds are located), which allegedly cuts down the radiated heat by about 45%. The ceramic precludes easy welded crack repairs, but I think it will save heartache in other areas during operation.