Overhaul time!

122 posts in this topic

Posted

Looks like Fed Ex ground was the best shipping option. I was quoted $136 of it comes in at 100lbs. I think I paid a little over $100 last time 5 yrs ago. It goes out tomorrow. Pretty proud of my box even if it took 5 hrs and an 18 pack to make it!!! Any job that involves saws, screws, garage time and beer is a good one.

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Posted

Looks like you got the arrows right, even after the 18 pack... :party:

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Posted

lol wouldn't that be the shitts to put the arrows upside down.  Ha If the florescent light suddenly appear on the wall strait acrossed from you, stand up stupid you fell over.

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Posted

My crate went out today via FedEx ground. Weight was 107 lbs which included my EBox with starter and carbs and a way overkill wooden box. Cost me $190 with $5K insurance and a sig required. I used a local shipping place that I've done business with before. Received a decent Military discount. It would of been about $45 cheaper without the insurance. Decided to go on the high side for only 1% of the declared value going to the insurance.

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Posted

Joey,

     With no engine, you will have plenty of time to do all the things you put off doing because flying was so much more fun!

EDMO

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Posted

Exactly my thoughts Ed. I've told people before if you are building don't ever say " oh I will just get it flying and then do that xyz later on" there's really no good time to take the plane out of service especially in CA. I am driving to a Fly-In this weekend. Hoping once I have the motor back I will be more motivated to finish the radiator changes and get my TK1 gear on.

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Posted

I have an excuse today - very easy to come up with excuses - got to get back to building strut hangers tomorrow.

and  then, and then.....

EDMO

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Posted

Exactly my thoughts Ed. I've told people before if you are building don't ever say " oh I will just get it flying and then do that xyz later on" there's really no good time to take the plane out of service especially in CA. I am driving to a Fly-In this weekend. Hoping once I have the motor back I will be more motivated to finish the radiator changes and get my TK1 gear on.

 

I didn' build and have not even started the engine and I keep seeing things I'm not fond of...

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Posted

Made a little progress today. Side radiator is officially gone and I cleaned everything up really well. To replumb my cooling system the hose is going to come up right where my gascolator is. I know Leni ditched his and I'm thinking I will do the same to make room.

 

 

You can see where the hose needs to be routed with this radiator set up.

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Lots of metal gone!

 

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2-stroke Kitfox drivers I need a couple of pictures of how this is mounted under your cowling.

 

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Posted

Tried to upload some photos...no luck

 

Mine is mounted on the right side of the FW outboard the right, upper engine mount brace. The top fitting on the left side (in your picture) goes to the overflow bottle. The next one down goes to the engine head (top rear). The left (in your picture) radiator hose goes to the right belly radiator tube. The right radiator hose (in your picture) goes to the engine thermostat.

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Posted

Thanks for the info. How is it physically mounted to the airplane? I have a fireproof firewall blanket. Is it mounted directly to the firewall?

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Posted

Mine uses hose clamps to hold it to a thin, flat plate welded to the mount brace.

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Posted

Joey, being that your engine is mounted inverted, I would think that the small second from the top fitting would go to the small fitting on the water pump. Jim Chuk

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Posted

I have some pictures from another member who's done this. I have the plumbing figured out, I am just trying to decide on the cleanest/easiest way to mount the Kitfox filler neck under the cowl.

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Posted

Well I just got an email from Rotax Rick regarding my engine. The Mag side piston was in rough shape on the intake side only. He's got real no explanation. The exhaust side is the hot side typically. Has anyone on here seen this before? He said he was still evaluating the cylinder and would replace the cylinder rather than bore. These were OEM pistons with 352 hrs on them. I'm a little bit concerned now and I'm wondering if it had anything to do with my engine out a few weeks back. I am pretty positive the electrical plug was the culprit though because it ran fine once I fixed that. I haven't done a compression check in a few months but when I did it was still reading over 100 PSI and both cylinders were right together. Thoughts from the masses on why only piston would score on the intake side?
Besides that they look great for being past TBO.

 

Scored%20Piston.jpg

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Posted

looks like an out of round cylinder to me.

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Posted

Rotax Rick is a little stumped on this one as well. He's going to replace the cylinder it sounds like. More to come.

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Posted

And would you please get that tk-1 gear on that thing, I have a feeling I am not the only one that wants to watch you drop her in from 5 feet smiling.

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Posted

It's going on this weekend hopefully. I have to mock it up, set the axle depth, and drill the back plates and then spray it snd replumb the brakes.

What are you guys using for 1" radiator hose? The stuff that's on there now is super heavy duty you can't even squeeze it. Dean Wilson installed it.

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Posted

I will use all automotive stuff on the Mangy Fox fwf.

Spoke to Steve Krueger this evening about your partially cooked piston. You may want to reach out to him for a second opinion on your engine stuff. He has been building and rebuilding Rotax two-strokes for 20 years or more.

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Posted

Will do Larry!! Thanks so much.

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Posted

Curious, what exactly happened leading up to the engine out?

 

One of the most common failures is for an engine to seize momentarily because the piston expands faster than cylinder due to a lean condition and compromised lubrication. A partial throttle decent maybe. When piston cools everything runs perfectly like nothing ever happened....and this can happen so quickly that you might not even realize what happened, except a very small amount of aluminium is scraped on to a cylinder wall. The engine may run perfectly for hours, days or weeks after that. But...that small amount of aluminium on the cylinder rubbing against the piston just gets worse and worse until it self destructs.

 

I'm only throwing this out as a possibility.

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Posted (edited)

Here are a couple of pistons I took out of a 582 that seemed to run fine.  It had an engine out before I bought the plane, shortly after take off, and the guy was able to land straight ahead on what was left of the runway.  Engine started up afterwards, and seemed to run ok.  He didn't have a thermostat in the engine, and it was about 45 degrees F.  I figure it was a cold seizure.  Had both cylinders bored to the next larger size and new pistons installed as there were some scratches in the cylinders.  Jim Chuk 

 

PS,  just looking at the pictures, I think this is the same piston, not two different ones. 

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Edited by Jim Chuk

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Posted

Heard back from Rick today. My engine is back together and almost ready to test run. He said the crank and rods looked perfect and didn't see anything else of concern. The day my engine lost power was no different than any other day as far as warm up goes. He didn't have any explanation to the piston. He's going to send them back with the engine so I can look into it further.

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Posted

Is this just a stock rebuild?

Did he bore the cylinder or replace?

If bore, had this been bored before?

are the Pistons the same size?

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