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[August 3, 2012]


The bottom of the dipstick tube was leaking where it interfaced to the crankcase. Although the leak was very small, it bothered me so I decided to try to fix it. My previous attempt was to use High-temp RTV on it. This made some work for me to remove all of the RTV from the dipstick tube and the crankcase.


The hardest part of cleaning the RTV off the crankcase was trying not to get any to fall into the engine.


I bought a large piece of silicone gasket material off of Ebay. This is a 28" diameter circle of 1/8" thick material.


Here is the original gasket. The Inner Diameter is 1 1/8" and the outer diameter is 1 1/2".


I cut a new gasket out of the gasket material.


And boom! Installed. I also used 0.040" safety wire to secure it. Apparently what causes this to leak is the constant loosening and tightening of the dipstick. The thick silicone washer should cause any movement between the crankcase the the dipstick tube to remain sealed, while the 0.040" safety wire will minimize any movement.


The sealing of the plenum to the baffles turned out great! I cleaned it all up and re-installed the plenum.


Lastly tonight I wanted to figure out the cause of why the RV was out of alignment on the yaw axis. I suspected I didn't position the gear leg fairings properly. Well, sure enough my right gear leg fairing was out of alignment by over 1/4". The left fairing was pretty much perfect. I will need to test fly this soon to make sure it's right and then get started on the intersection fairings.

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Last Modified: August 13, 2023