- Built tail wheel lift - worked great to easily level the tail when hanging the engine.
- My brother Paul came to town to help get the engine hung
- The first big step was getting the engine out of its box. The original plan was to lift it out but the base of the lift I have was not wide enough so we had to cut the engine out of the foam it was encased in.
- Once we had the engine free we removed the mags and installed the mag block off plates from EFII. These plates also serve as mounts for the ignition coils.
- We also installed the prop governor, prop control bracket and oil temperature sensor.
- The actual hanging of the engine went quickly. We used the tips from Vans Air Force. With the tail level we got the bolts in easily.
- We ran into problems trying to tighten the nuts on the engine bolts. My wrench was to big to fit in the tight spaces and hold the nut. The eventual solution involved a lot of grinding down on the wrench. On the lower bolts I would also recommend putting 2 washers on first as this also makes the nut easy to access.
- While Paul was in town we also transported the wings and wing stands to the t-hangar at AVL.
- Torqued the engine bolts using new nuts. Also installed the cotter pins (tricky).
- Removed the top spark plugs and installed the auto plug adapters and dehydrator plugs.
- Installed a pipe plug in the gauge port on the fuel spider.
- Installed a steel fitting on the #3 cylinder to attach a line for the manifold pressure sensor.
- Removed the stock Lycoming breather fitting. I have a new straight fitting that will work with the half Raven inverted oil separator. (In retrospect we should have done this before hanging the engine. Space was very tight. The fitting came off but I will need some touch up paint for the engine case!)
- Installed JDAir ball bearing tail wheel assembly. I'm really impressed with this product. I think it will be low maintenance. It also looks very nice with the black powder coat. The fit was very precise with my tail wheel spring. I just had to open up the holes for the taper pins.
A little closer to flying...
A lot of great help from my brother:
Tail wheel lift works great (took a lot of time to build):
Magneto block off / coil mount plate:
Engine ready to be hung:
Manifold pressure fitting (with orange torque seal):
Spider gauge port plug (with orange torque seal):
Dehydrator plugs:
JD Air tail wheel assembly:
