Well, I thought I might be able to get away with just a top-end rebuild. I gave my cylinders to Don Goyette at Aircraft Cylinder Repair. I got a call a few days later. He said he could rebuild them all, but noted that he saw metal flecks in the piston skirts. I went by […]
Build log
Powder coating engine parts
Since I have some time, I thought I’d powder coat the intake tubes and valve covers. I had already painted these parts, and had sandblasted and used good quality engine paint on them, but during assembly and testing, they got chipped up. That engine paint came off way too easy. So, I thought I’d powder […]
Top end rebuild needed
So, the euphoria of starting my engine and taxiing around was quickly dampened as I found my engine was running poorly and not delivering full power. I determined that there were two issues. Firstly, my LightSpeed electronic ignition system was faulty – the side supplying to spark to cylinders 3/4 was giving out very weak […]
Engine start and first taxi
I have not posted much lately, but I’ve still been quite busy – just not anything that I can put together into post. Taking care of the million little tasks left, finding little problems/mistakes and fixing them et cetera. I have started the engine and, while there are still a few issues, its running. I’m […]
Weight and Balance
After hearing about a couple rather corpulent Velocities, I was actually dreading putting my project up on the scales. I asked my local EAA chapter if we had scales – they said absolutely, come pick them up. My EAA chapter hangar is about a 1.5hr drive away, so I was considering just flying there with a […]
Pedal mod
After getting the rudders connected and filling the brakes with brake fluid, I put the pilot seat in and gave the pedals a test. My brakes are still squishy as I need some help bleeding them, but I was did not like how much I had to point my toes to depress the brakes. The […]
Nav/strobe lights
Mounted the LED Nav/strobe lights. They look a bit small – they’re the Aveo Powerburst light set, which were reasonably priced an seem pretty bright.
Engine and cowling
Now that the plane is at the hangar, fully assembled and looking like a real airplane, I’ve been working on the million little things needed to get to first flight. Many little things to do on the engine and cowling. I’m concerned about shielding electrical wires from the exhaust heat, so I made a heat […]
Prop and extension
My prop and extension arrived from Catto the other day. Looks great. Fitted it on and realized that I’ll need to trim my cowling a bit to provide clearance for the prop. Also, I need to scoop out a bit of a concave at the 12 and 5 o-clock positions of the cowlings to allow […]
Aileron balancing
I was able to get the ailerons balanced while staying under the 9.5lb weight limit. I used stick-on weights applied to the top of the leading edge to balance each side. After applying the weights, I put a layer of BID over the weights to secure. Had to do a little filing to recover all […]