Warbird Information Exchange

Looking great David! Glad to see the annual's winding down successfully. I flew down to the KRFD RPA formation clinic last Saturday and talked to Paul and we're planning on flying to Thunder in a three ship (F-86, T-33, T-2) so that should be fun (attn Scott (sdennison), take lotsa pics!). My buddy gave Paul hop in his P-51 and he was definitely diggin' it, said you got room in the WHF hangar. HA!! Mark Sherman is putting together my Atomix fuel additive order--a big enough batch for around 8000 gallons so that should get me through a good portion of the airshow season for this trial...should be interesting to see if the 8% gain in fuel economy really pans out. Awesome thread David! See you soon.

Hi Paul, thanks for the good comments. I would like to see a P51 in our hangar as well. Lot's of neat airplanes on my list. Would you send me the information on Atomix? We're thinking of using it as well once we learn a little more about it.
David

Today Tom and I installed the Exhaust Cone that came back from repair. We checked the tip clearance between the turbine blades and the shroud before we torqued the bolts and after. Tom also took care of some more squawks and started closing more panels that we are finished with.







David
WHF Maint

Just curious (you know me ).......what is that clearance? Looks awfully small. Obviously, if it's too close, that could be a rubbing problem, but is there a "too big"? Would that be the equivalent of low compression in a "real" engine?

Gary

Good Morning Gary,
Minimum clearance is .045 and a maximum of .140. It's a large difference bewtween min and max. For whatever reason ours is towards the minimum. I could easlily get .045 around the whole turbine wheel. This is the same exhaust cone and turbine shroud that we removed at the beginning of the inspection. I'm going to check with my resident J47 expert today and confirm these measurements are OK. This is my first time to do this and it has to be right.
David
WHF Maint

Gary,
I have a correction to the clearances I gave previously. The turbine shroud we have installed is called a floating shroud. The minimum clearance on this is .020". I have a very consistent clearance of .045" all the way around. Looks like my shroud and exhaust cone are nice and round.
Not much new to report. Took some time to work on the Stearman and install a new primer. The old one was flat worn out. Had a problem with the old primer leaking and getting our bottom 2 cylinders full of fuel. I dried out the bottom cylinders and turned the fuel on over night to make sure I don't have the same thing happen again. We'll run it tomorrow and then do an oil change. Need to have her ready for the weekend just in case the weather is good. Also preflighted and serviced the T2 just in case as well.
David
WHF Maint

We're making headway and are starting to put major components back together. Tom removed and replaced the right hand aileron actuator as it has a static leak. Never leaked under pressure, just a little as it sat in the hangar. Here's a picture of the actuator in the plane and out of the plane.




I finished a little body work on the new wingtip and installed it today as it is ready for a final sand and paint.



I installed the oil scavenge pump which is located at the bottom of the engine between two combustion cans. I was then able to install the last burner can and finish most of the engine hookups.




The last thing I did before I headed home for the day was to install the right hand flap. Very easy to do. Two phillips head screws and one bolt on the actuator.



David

Dave,

Turn Paul onto this post (if you haven't already) as it is amazing to see what you have gone through and I don't think he was up to speed on how great an informational presentation you have been putting together.

Obviously he knows how deep you have gone with this project but didn't seem to know how much you have shared with the rest of us.

I really enjoyed sitting with him this weekend at Waukesha. Cool guy and really down to earth. I recommend any time anyone on the WIX gets a chance to meet Paul, take it!

Thanks to you and he on behalf of all who have enjoyed this thread.

_________________
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Hi Scott,
I think Paul knows about my thread here, but might not have as much time as he'd like to visit the web. He really is great guy and glad you had the chance to meet him. We need to get you down here and see the facility. What's your schedule for this weekend? I'll be out Saturday morning and most of the day on Sunday. You're welcome to come down if you have the time. I'll even load up the parts we need to get repaired if you want to tackle them.
Thanks for the comments and I'm actually having fun sharing the work in progress. We all get to enjoy them flying, but rarely see what it takes to keep them going. That's what I want to show people. I especially like to answer questions as they usually make me research something and help me learn more about this machine.

David

Making progress now! Today I worked a couple more of the squawks we need to have fixed before we can reinstall the tail section. I found out what was happening with one of the vertical stabilizer mount bolts. When I inspected them one of them looked funny around the nut. Today I pulled the bolt and found a washer that was meant for a shouldered bolt to be there and a little squashed and oblong. Easy fix by replacing the washer and torqueing the bolt. Here's the washer I removed on the right in this picture.



I put the airplane in the air on jacks in preparation to reshim the left hand downlock. There is a little too much play in the gear sideload when in the lock, so I'm going to try to shim it into spec. It should be between .001-.007 and I'm a little over that. Here's a picture of the downlock and the stop. The shims go under the stop.



I also pulled out the emergency motor and pump and got my bath of hydraulic fluid. Never fails that I wear it if I mess with it. Tom reinstalled the new motor and pump. I warned him about the dose of 5606 he might get. I'll have to ask if he had better luck than I did. Here's 2 pictures of the motor and pump removed and new ones installed.




This past weekend I primed the new nose gear that we'll be installing soon. We'll get the tail section done and tackle this probably on Sunday. Here's the parts ready for paint. I plan to paint them tomorrow night if able.



David
WHF Maint

This is definitely a facinating view of how much time and effort are involved in a thorough annual inspection of a jet warbird.My comment for the hydraulic fluid bath is to be thankful that its 5606 and not Skydrol.Two of Butler Aircraft's three DC-7's are ex-United Airlines machines that use that caustic stuff.

I was just going to ask about the 5606 thing. David or Larry, when did they start using Skydrol instead of 5606? I was obviously wrong, but I thought it was sort of a rule of thumb that all jets used Skydrol.

Dang, I've sure got a lot to learn about this whole Warbird world, huh?

Gary

Good Morning guys,
I'm not sure when they switched to skydrol. The T2 is also 5606. I'm trying to think back to when I was in the service and I think the F15 was 5606 as we didn't get any specialized trainning and I can remember an airplane in for inspection with a pinhole in a hydraulic line misting the top of the airplane as well as us. I didn't see skydrol until I started working in corporate aviation. The corprorate birds I work on now are 5606.
I haven't had to work around skydrol much, thankfully.
David

Gary,as far as I know,Tankers 62 and 66 were delivered to United in 1957 and 1958 respectively as Skydrol airplanes.Come to think of it,our old Tanker 67 (N6318C) was also an ex-United Skydrol airplane delivered in 1954.I'm not sure when that evil stuff first came out,but the CAA manual for the three civilian Super DC-3"s that went to Capital Airlines said that they used Skydrol.I think that manual was dated 1952.When I flew TBM Inc's R4D-8/C-117D on the Alaska Fish Haul in 1981,the FAA made us carry that CAA approved manual and didn't even want the Navy C-117D manual,which was completely up to date,in the airplane.Go figure.Something to do with the conformity inspection and a bone headed maintenance FAA guy in Alaska.I think that our maintenance guys have looked into converting to 5606,but its just too much work.

Larry,
I sure am glad not to work with Skydrol. I managed to prove to myself that it isn't good to get in your eyes a number of years ago. Caster Oil works wonders.
Tonight I concentrated on the engine and the tailpipe. We installed the tailpipe which weighs quite a bit and is held on with one big honking clamp. I spent another hour safety wiring. Here's a few shots of the engine almost complete.








Here's a couple of photos looking down the intake.




David