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[August 8, 2012]


I sent away for an oil analysis on my recent oil change to Blackstone Labs (http://blackstone-labs.com/). They were very quick to get back to me with an email delivered report - less than 7 days! The report comes with a nice personalized message with a basic analysis on the sample.


And then it gets into the quantitative analysis of the oil analysis.


And some more. I am very impressed with this service. Although pricey ($25 for the analysis $6 for shipping), the piece of mind if worth it.


Since I recently redid a bunch of connectors and adjusted the gear leg fairings, I wanted to go for a quick flight to make sure everything was working right. The ball is centered! My CHT's are down! However, my oil temp sensor is reporting it is not working.


And there, it starts working again. This reminds me of the failure it had going out to Oshkosh.


I pulled the cowling off and noticed the glue on top of the oil temp sensor was cracked off, the the sensor was pulling away from the brass housing.


Here is some of the glue which just flaked off.


I removed the sensor for further analysis.


This is the actual sensor, which is embedded in the brass housing. I hooked it up to my multimeter, and no matter what I did, it never would give a temp reading.


Since the gear leg fairings were aligned properly, I thought it was as good of time as any to work on fitting the upper intersection fairings. I purchased these fairings through RV Bits (http://www.rvbits.com). The fit was very good on them. I clecoed the aft section together and checked out the overall fit.


The top fit was damn near perfect.


The bottom side had a gap of about 1/8"


I needed to heat up the fairing to cause it to bed, but I didn't want to do it with the fuel vent so close. So I taped it off.


I popped the fuel cap to allow the tank to breath, but covered it with a towel as a makeshift flame arrestor.


And of course a note for the pilot....


After forming the fairing, I made an outline of it on the fuselage and cowling.


I used packing tape to protect the fuselage from any epoxy.


I want to do something different with the aft of the fairings, so I laid some light fiberglass on the fuselage.


After using some flox and micro balloons, the fairings are positioned.


I am very impressed with the fit out of the box. They won't need much work to get them to fit nicely.


Another thing I investigated while the cowl was off was the new washed I made for the oil fill tube. It looked like it was working perfectly. No oil leaks whatsoever.

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Last Modified: August 13, 2023