Warbird Information Exchange

Thanks Randy, all good information!! More to come

Maintenance Report
Dec. 3, 2008


Not much to tell you from the last report on FIFI, Anderson Aeromotive is building a 2nd engine for us for now. We will still await Jeff Abbotts engine to get completed and back here to Midland for testing. We delivered a complete cowling assembly to Nelson Ezell’s shop 2 weeks ago so he can begin the cutting and fitting of the cowling to accommodate the new engine. We still have not located the exhaust we need but have some good leads to follow up on. If we find what we are looking for it will save us having to manufacture 5 complete collector rings from scratch $$$$. The wing section is still in work in California. Props should be going out in about 10 days. Most of my time is still being spent on “Testiclese” I’ll cover that next.

TESTICLESE;
Our vintage test stand, is coming along nicely. The original hydraulic throttle and mixture controls are back together, installed and working as advertized. Fuel system nearly complete with all original valves, strainers and boost pump. The control panel and junction box wiring are looking great! All new wiring was run from the control panel to the junction box and connected to the terminal strips. Next comes, relays, switches, lights, gauges and harnesses to the respective valves, pumps, mags, starter, and sending units, etc. The oil coolers had to be remounted and plumbing for that is next.

Junction box




control panel




Master throttle and mixture controls in control room




Slave throttle and mixture controls mounted on stand behind the engine.

I had a bunch of help this week and we made some good progress on "Testiclese"

This is Bob, he's very much into his work!



From left to right in our little workshop; Bobby, whos working on putting the front exhaust collector ring on, then Lyle, whos trying to find the right drawer in the tool box, he's working on the control panel and junction box wiring, myself, listening to Bobby ask me " can I just weld it together? " and Tom, trying to find the right tool. He and Jim are doing some much needed work on our B-4 stands.



This is showing the front exhaust collector ring partially installed


This is the new battery charger that Mark installed last week and battery compartment.



This is the battery charger/external power relay panel that Mark and Bob finished up.

Dave, I'm sure that a lot of people enjoy your pictures and news.
Thanks a lot for the time you spend to post them

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Sorry for my bad English:-(

Cool, looks like you're getting close...

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.
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Sure, Charles Lindbergh flew the plane... but Tom Rutledge built the engine!

Visit Django Studios online or Facebook!

Dave, I still need that list of Circuit Breakers to finalize the new panel. Otherwise, I've got all the other edits you requested completed.

Dave, Gary, et al.... looking good! Can't wait to hear some big engine noise! Any piccies of the new oil cooler installation? Alan

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Just call me Al.

Sorry Chris, haven't got that yet but send me what you have and use the ones I gave you for the specific componets. Add a few blank spaces and I'll pencil them in as needed.

Shorty is coming in on wednsday and we are going to go over all that and get amp values for the rest of the breakers and relays.

Thanks,

Dave

Okay. I'll finish up what I've got and get you the diagram in the next day or two.

I'll probably have to send the full-res vector image on a CD to you. I'll let you know.

General question to the board - anyone know anything about CAD programs and whether you can take a vector image and import it directly to a CAD program to create a CNC or Waterjet plan?

Depends on the particular software. What are you using or planning on using?

Actually, that's the thing. The only thing I found as far as a CAD program that was free and I was able to do anything in was CoCreate, however it's very foreign to me as all I trained on was AutoCAD and it allowed me to imput the material size and thickness while CoCreate apparently doesn't (although I admit I've not gotten really heavily into the help file or manual yet).

If you have any suggestions it'd be great. I've been using GIMP to build the image and I plan on saving it in a vector format, but I need to know which one to save it in and what CAD program I need to use or the machine operator needs to be using.

Dave Miller caught me while I was in the main CAF hangar this morning and asked if I could take a few photos and post them of work on getting FIFI's props ready to go to the prop shop in San Antonio, so here goes.

The props were hung on the prop trailer when they were pulled off the engines - note that there are two more props to pull and this will require that the hangar be "dumped" and FIFI pulled out and put back in facing the ramp.



First the prop domes had to be removed. I think Dave said these weighed 90 pounds each!





The plan is to remove two of the blades so the props can be hauled to San Antonio on a 24-foot trailer. This old engine (which MAY be off a Connie) has the correct 50 spline shaft and is stable enough to use as a temporary work stand to remove the two blades from each prop to reduce their width for travel.



And finally, unrelated to any of this, I don't know if anyone has posted a photo of the CAF T-33 which has been returned to Midland from California, so here's one.



Again, if I got any of this wrong - blame Dave! Just kidding.

Oh, I just remembered that someone asked about the mounting of the oil coolers on Testicles, so here are a couple of images and Dave's comments.



Dave said that their earlier mounting further forward (to the right in the second image) on that shelf looked to be cutting of some significant air flow throught the top and sides of the coolers, so he moved them forward a bit by adding these brackets.



Over to Dave for now.

Randy

Hey, wow, he's found a proper use for a pilot!

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Dave, do you mind if I post a pic of the panel in progress to compare against the original?