Brought new plane home, find out engine is hatched...

[Yamma-Fox 403]

Ok.  Double checked it.  All the keepers are in there and looking good. Must have been a shadow in that pic.

Also pulled apart the oil pump, and that was looking good too.

So best guess I have is that some stray part (likely a foreign part) rattled around in there and got beat up... ended up mostly in the oil tank, with a few small pieces making their way down into the filter.

Guessing again here, but I think it has been in there for awhile and did relatively little damage.  I would guess it has been running a while like this.

Also, I have been in contact with the prev owner and he has been very helpful with ideas and options.  We did settle on his offer to cover an  half of the estimated cost to rebuild.  I thought that was very fair and was impressed with how he stood behind his airplane (and the condition he believed he was selling it in).

So now I am back to the big decision on whether to rebuild or repower.  Everyone on the forum who has weighed in has advised to go with the rebuild, whereas my gut feeling has been to repower.

So I guess I will probably let it sit here for the deep part of the MN winter here and contimplate the options.  The $11,000 crate from lotus floats has arrived, so i think I will divert to that project first, and take on the powerplant after that is done.

Thanks again to everyone for helping out with this!  And if you are checking in, thanks Paul for standing behind your old bird!!

[1avidflyer 1983]

I know winter if in full swing up there, but wondering if you found out anything else about your engine?  JImChuk