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I snuck out of work early today in hopes of getting an hour or so in. The weather looked great for Saturday, and I really wanted to squeeze out some time today so I could get my 40 hours in by Saturday. There was an overcast layer at 10,000'. It was chilly in the cabin without the sun roasting me as it usually does.  The GRT's are just great. I can't imagine another EFIS being better for the bucks.  My oil temps dropped a little. A few weeks ago my oil cooler blocker had the temps in the 180's. I might need to revisit this next winter.  Well it was COLD out. 20 degrees OAT on the end of March? I hate March. It is such a tease. A few days in the 70's and 80's, then wham, back to below freezing.  For some reason the left cowl pin keeps on working itself out. I need to figure out a retaining system so this pin stays in.  The sunset was absolutely awesome. However, my camera didn't really capture it.    Flying away from the sunset let a little to be desired. It was pretty mucky out. I needed to descend a few thousand feet to get decent visibility.  The hood lights worked well. They really makes the LCD's of the GRT's look sharp in reduced lighting.  Quick 1.3 on the hobbs. 4.2 hours left.  Since I was at 35 hours, it was time for my 25 hour oil change. When I decowled, I noticed the clamp for the air intake came loose.  This was more disturbing. Oil drippings on the lower cowl. Nothing major, but something.  Instead of debugging the random oil drip, time was of the essence to drain the oil while hot. I propped up the tail and got the old oil out.  I bought a Form-A-Funnel (http://formafunnel.com/) to help with taking off the oil filter. It is basically a piece of lead covered by rubber. It was expensive, however it did a great job. There is still some perfecting of the technique to do as I couldn't get it 100% under the filter - you can see the oil that spilled out on the ground. Luckily it didn't really spill over too much of the engine. This oil change was 1,000% easier than the last one. I tossed on a new filter and safety wired it.  Here is the culprit for the oil leak. Right down the case splitting in the front. It really looks like the oil is weeping from the front seal of the crankshaft. I have heard of Superior engines having this issue, although not at 40 hours. The seal is fairly easily replaced. After some research, I think I am going to leave it as it is for a while and see how bad it really is. It is definitely not a massive amount of oil leaking out.  Knowing that I have to pull the prop to replace this front seal, I wanted to note which blade was closest aligned to TDC. Blade two is the closest.  TDC is tough to see here, but it is the one closest to blade 2. Like I said, this is mainly for my benefit if/when I need to pull the prop. 
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Last Modified: August 13, 2023 |