I'll be there in the morning Jack. It's supposed to be misty with low ceilings here early, so I may not get out when I'd like to, but I should be able to take off at about 8:00and get there 1:22 later, which would be 10:22 your time. Airnav doesn't list a frequency for O4TN, so I'm going to guess 122.9 and see what happens.
I'd have tried to get in today but had some engine problems late Thursday, and then I spent all day today checking it over and fixing what I found wrong. It had been 11 days since I flew it to my father's farm for Mother's Day, and while I was there it got 5 gallons of gasohol put in it. It then sat for 11 days and went I tried to start it all I got was coughing, sputtering, bucking, and a generally bad feeling from the engine. It even died and ran backwards a time or two! It took about 6 re-starts and a lot of feeling around trying to find a sweet spot where it would run at all. Keep in mind that mine always starts instantly and runs smoothly...until Thursday afternoon. It eventually warmed up and smoothed out, but then I flew it and the EGTs were all high...in the 1600s! And on the runup I noticed the points caused a substantial RPM drop over the electronic system, which usually isn't the case. And it just didn't feel right. This morning I drained the fuel looking for water but got nothing, then checked the timing and it was advanced about 6 degrees to 36 degrees! Add to that (and they are related) that the points were gapped to maybe .006", and I know they were .019" last time I saw them, and they've only been "in use" for maybe 10 minutes in the last few years. While I was messing with the points I noticed the whole points plate moved, so I started wiggling the plate around and it was loose. Moving the point plate also changes the point gap, so there's the answer to that one...I moved the point plate around to where the points were gapped correctly and tightened it back down. I also couldn't get the XRi ignition module to trigger a spark statically, so I wondered about that for a minute but then realized that a hall effect "switch" probably needs to be moving faster than I was moving the prop. Sure enough, I could move the prop fast and it would spark, but of course that does no good for timing purposes. I also found the fuel fitting loose on the carb, and the bolt that hold the harmonic balancer was loose! I'm lucky I didn't shear the woodruff key. I put a new distributor cap on it while I was at it, tightened up all the intake fittings, etc. I'd cleaned the plugs about 10 flying hours ago, and the compression was 80/80 on all six then, and it still feels perfect at the prop. My gut feel is that the alcohol may have brought with it some water/alcohol mix, which settled in the carb and was awaiting startup. The violent shaking then broke the points plate loose and advanced the timing, which explains the high EGTs. I put it all together and it fired up instantly and ran smoothly, so flew it a while to check things out, did a few passes and landed, set the GPS for O4TN, and I'll see y'all in the morning... Mark Langford N56ML "at" hiwaay.net website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
