Warbird Information Exchange

<-----Still keepin' Gary's axle hidden so's he don' get wrapped around it 'tween now and Saturday!

Quickie update as I walk out the door for the day...

Daniel worked very hard on the floor for the tunnel gun position, but didn't quite get it finished. Unfortunately, he had to leave, so I'll have to finish it up. These dang floorboards are starting to be quite the challenge. At this rate, I'm not even real sure I'll have enough of them finished to let folks even go through the airplane at the unveiling this weekend, as I still have a gazillion other little things to get done.

For example, after seeing the airplane out in the sun yesterday, I could (easily) see all of the flaws in the paint, particularly in numerous places on the black and on the brown that's on the top of the wings. I just finished repainting much of the black moments ago and will attempt to get the brown done either tomorrow or Wednesday. It's looking like I'm going to be volunteerless until late in the week, so it's gonna be a long week (that'll be too short for me to finish everything).

Gary

How did the run up go? Did the engines run as expected?
Dave

Gary,

Would kill to see the shots. system still wont allow me to pull the pics out of the ether. Guess I'll have to wait for a magazine photoshoot but I guess it will make Ghosts for 2008!

Gary.... when you drill holes in the yardstick it becomes a Beam Compass. Just another high priced tool you need for your tool box. Now you have two beam compi (is that the plural?) to back charge the squadron for. They should be worth big bucks if you paint Snap On on them.

Dave...the run-up went well. Number three engine was hydraulic locked, which I obvoiusly caught before running it. Once I drained the oil from that one cylinder, everything else went well. Naturally, the engines puked all over the top of the wings, but that's to be expected since they've sat for so long. I'm actually going to clean them up tonight, as I have some more painting to do.

Mustang51...I'm sorry you can't get any of the pictures. I wish I knew what to do to help, but I'm clueless when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Obergrafeter...Hmmm, a SnapOn yardstick.....maybe they'll purchase the idea from me. Yeah, right.

So, here it is, nearly 11:30 p.m. I've been here about an hour now, since I couldn't even make a reasonable attempt at sleeping. I tried and tried, but with no luck, so I came back out here to work. You see, some of my sleeplessness comes from things I discover while going behind folks that have helped work on the airplane. I rarely post the not-so-great things that I have to go back and redo from time to time, as it simply doesn't do anyone much good to post that sort of thing. I also have no intentions of possibly hurting anyone's feelings that may have tried their best to help, but just not gotten it right (I tend to be nit-picky about things sometimes). But a discovery I made this morning (which seems like such a long time ago now), has been eating at me all day and now all night.

Yesterday (Sunday), before running the engines, I put some fuel in the airplane. Not much, only 50 gallons a side. I'll have to drain the fuel later in order to accurately weigh the aircraft, so I only needed enough to do a few engine runs. Anyway, everything looked fine and there were no problems. However, this morning when I got to the hangar, I noticed fuel dripping from under the fuselage. Upon further investigation, I noticed that the fittings for the fuel drain lines from the bottom of the fuel tank, to the sump drains on the lower, right side of the fuselage, were all loose. Not finger loose, but certainly not tight. Fuel had just barely been seeping out of some of them, while others were dripping pretty good.

I was initially just disappointed in the volunteers who had fabricated and put these lines in place, as they told me the job had been completed. I was also disappointed in myself because I hadn't checked the tightness of them, other than going over the B-nuts with my fingers to insure they'd been tightened with a wrench. None of this was the end of the world, however, and I figured that I'd just grab a wrench, tighten the B-nuts up and go on about the rest of my chores. Well, the leaks all stopped, except in one location, right at one of the bottom fuel lines.

I disconnected that line, further up at a union, and capped it. I then disconnected the faulty B-nut and found this........




If you look closely, you'll see a crack in the end of the tubing. Not a small crack, mind you, but a big, honkin' crack that the Queen Mary could pass through (okay, maybe not that big, but you get the point). This wasn't caused by overtightening, because this B-nut was one of the loose ones. This was caused by faulty manufacturing. I was angry at first, but disappointment took over. Not necessarily disappointment in the volunteers that did this (although there was a bit of it directed towards them), but mostly in me for assuming that they knew what they were doing and not keeping a closer eye on things. These guys were "hydraulic specialists" in one of the Armed Forces and even though they told me they only removed and replaced parts, they should still know right from wrong. I trusted them, based soley on what they do at their day job. I should've kept a closer eye on what was going on.

I cut off the faulty flare and was able to repair the tubing with no real issue, but it's been eating at me all day and now all night that I may have missed something else. But what? Who else has done this type of work on the fuel system. What about the engines? Who worked on that landing gear? Did the right type of fluid go in the hydraulic system? What's difficult about this for me is that I'm ultimately the one responsible for what everyone does on this airplane. A fella told me a long time ago that "these airplanes were designed to kill people...and they've been doing it ever since." I try my absolute hardest to keep one of the airplanes I've worked on from killing anyone.

This is why I don't sleep.

I recently had one of our volunteers (who's become a friend of mine) tell me that he initially had some reservations about coming down to help me work because he'd heard that I can be a reeeeal *sshole to be around sometimes. Well, I reckon it's situations like I found this morning that make me that way.

So, I'm going to get back out there and get to work. I'm going to look closely over the airplane, as I continue to press on with some of the projects that I'm seriously delinquent on. And if I don't get everything ready by the time this deadline arrives on Saturday, I reckon y'all will at least know that it's likely because I'm having to go back and fix stuff that might get someone hurt otherwise.

I'll holler at y'all later.

Gary

If they just want to look at the plane, have folks or the press see it, maybe run the engines, fine. If they intend to fly it, to hell with the deadline. It is ready when it is fully ready, not before and that would be when you have had plenty of time to check everything and not when you are trying to do too much yourself without sleep. It would be foolish to risk a valuable plane and people's lives for an artificial time table. It ain't the Normandy invasion.

_________________
Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Yeah, I reckon I need to clarify the deadline a little bit here. It was initially for the flight of the airplane, but has become only the "unveiling" of it. I will not allow anyone to attempt to fly it until it's ready, nor would any of our guys even suggest it. But I'm still trying to have it look as complete as possible for this deadline. Make sense?

Gary

First I've had a few because as an Inspector I had a day like yours but from one A&P,I.A. to another "good find "
I've thought about writing this before and now that you brought it up I will.
I've been alittle worried about you telling us and taking pics of what you do most days for our entertainment because if anything was to happen and the friendly FAA gets alook at these posts....well you know how the FAA can twist things And you may be by yourself.
I have loved your posts and what you've done to 0L'927 in such a small time frame. If the people on the 12th want to see a perfectly complect B-24,point them to Dayton because all you have is a working B-24
Now please get some rest even the best can make a mistake when their tried.

I'm not worried about the FAA. I have never done anything to an aircraft that I've been afraid of showing anyone. They are welcome to come and look at any of the airplanes I work on. Its true that they may read my posts here (as a matter of fact, I know they do). I think that the honest and candid nature of this thread shows everyone out there that even if some of the work I do turns out looking like poop, it'll still be safe before I let anyone fly it.

Heck, there's an open invitation for anyone to take a tour of this ol' B-24, even those FAA guys who are just here to help.

Gary

Well, while I'm waiting on paint to dry a bit before I move on to the next project, I figured I'd post a couple of pictures of some of the work that's been done this morning. I've pretty much finished all of the exterior painting that I'm going to do before the unveiling. It's a huge waste of paint to doll it up for this, only to have to come back and repaint it when the entry door and waistgunner's position is finished, but I reckon it does need to look as good as possible for this event.

I've primarily been fixing some of the "uglies" that I noticed when the airplane was outside on Sunday. I'd have to strip and repaint the airplane to fix them all, but it's gotta be better than what it was. There was really no reason to take pictures of that process, as it's the same thing you've all seen over and over.

The only two things that were somewhat "picture worthy" were the waistgunner's opening now has green paint on it and I decided to paint the inside of the door frame to coincide with the exterior camouflage since I won't have the entry door installed during the unveiling........






So now that the painting is more or less done for now, I'm going to move on to other projects. I reckon I'll start with that tunnel gun floor that Daniel wasn't quite able to finish. I'll check in with y'all a little later.

Gary

Just hope the paint holds up to the first flight

_________________
Cheers,
Peter

________

Good question. And no, you're not fanning the frustrations, but I do appreciate the way you asked the question.

What you see right now is the original door frame that Consolidated put in during the transport reconfiguration. Well, it's the upper portion of the original transport door frame anyhow (if you remember, I closed off the bottom portion already). The door I've built is actually slightly shorter than the original door frame that you see now. Why? Because the bottom of the left waistgunner's position is about four inches lower than that top piece of the existing frame. I will simply (yeah, right...simple ) fabricate a new piece of structure and install it at the original height of the bottom of the waistgunner's position (which is where the top of my new door extends to). Once that new piece is in place, I'll just take out the structure that was made for the upper portion of the transport door. Is any of this making sense?

Anyway, if what I just tried to explain is too confusing, just trust me with the fact that I have the idea in my head. I just can't seem to explain it to where it sounds right.

Gary

Hi Gary,

I tip my hat to you Sir. The arduous work and innovation you have done on this project have been simply outstanding. I can't wait to see the photo's of the unveiling. You've been the best Ambassador for the CAF in a very very long time. I only wish I would have had the time in my own schedule to make the trek to help you out

Respectfully,

Paul

Sasnak,

I asked the same basic question a coupleof weeks ago and Gary answered that the plan was for the left side to be shown in the closed position and the right side to be the open side. That way, viewers could see both configurations at he same time. Of course, that could be for a temporary fix and not the long term. Anyway, it's gonna be COOOOLLL!

Rick