Warbird Information Exchange

Dave,

Sure I will come down! See private message for details.

Edward Sheetmetalhands

Thank-you for adding such good information and pictures to this thread.
If Gary's thread last winter about the Warbird formerly known as Diamond Lil could be considered "Warbird Restoration 101", this FiFi thread must be "Warbird Restoration 201"
Best wishes to all you FiFi volunteers for a rewarding 2009. Thanks for all you do.

Well, it's my hope that as we get further into this project, I can provide the information you all want. I have to tell you, this is a learning curve for me with taking the pics and posting them in a timely manner. I'll do my best to keep the camera close and let you know what we are doing.

Dave

Dave, It was great to be back in Midland. You are doing a great job in organizing the work areas.I should be back in janurary.[/b]

Shorty, You are a great help and a great friend. You are always welcome and always needed. Come again in January and I will have stuff for you to do. For those of you that don't know, Shorty is my Mentor and a great friend from Akron Oh. We have flown together and he has trained me as a flight engineer on the B-24 and been with me on my training fights on the B-29. We have spent many hours, days and weeks together on tour and I owe him much for where I am today. Welcome him as a new and hopefully frequent poster to the WIX family.

Dave

I caught Col. Skeeter snuggling with his faithful companion Shadow!
Hope everyone had a nice Christmas!!

This is Chris Trobridge and his dad Greg, continuing to remove exhaust and intake parts on the -95 we are readying for Nelson.



These guys like to get dirty!!

Thanks for the update Dave. Looks like the cats knew how to spend christmas.

_________________
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Dave,

Here are two old photos of Doc's LH outboard wing loaded onto a flat, upside down, disassembly complete, all sanded up, and on the way to the paint shop. The other photo is of the RH outboard wing spar corrosion (typical spar corrosion.) The corrosion extended nearly all the way through the 2" thick milled part. The exfoliation from the spar cap had started other spots in the same area; the spar web itself and the sta528 spar stiffener angle (angle removed in the photo) YMMV.

Thanks for the pics but did you get my PM about the left ribs vs the right??
Dave

If it were not for the work of Jim Moore and Tom Tom, it would not have been nearly as easy. Jim and Tom did alot of the early hard work!!

Dad and I have had alot of fun helping Dave the last couple of days.

Everyone be safe,
Chris

Looks good. So any of the new engines done yet? Run yet?
Nelson? he/they doing the engines?

Jeff Abbott is feverishly working to finish the first one and Ray Anderson has started a second, up in Idaho. Nelson is waiting for me to get him a mockup -95/26wd for fitting the cowling and still trying to find Connie 749 exhaust parts to see if they are what we need. I'll be posting some more pics in the morning!
Dave

I quick up date on Testiclese. We have the control room panel cut thanks to Chris's efforts with the CAD drawing. It's installed on it's base and wiring is continuing to be done by Mark Russell. Two people who I have failed to mention on this project are Jim Ballard and Robbie from Tulsa. Jim and Robbie spent a great deal of time down here before I got here, working on this test stand. Many thanks go to them!!

Chris and his Dad came back out Friday and continued working on getting the blower case off of what will be the mockup for Nelson. Once they got all the intake and exhaust parts off, the PRT's were removed and we went vertical!




Then they took all the nuts off the blower case studs and disconnected the oil lines from the case. While they were doing that, I rigged a chain onto the case and got "Big Red" (our fork lift) in position to lift off the case.


Now that we had the case off and hanging from the chains, I took this shot of the inside of the blower case.



Then we took a look inside the back of the engine. Here is where you get some sense of why it takes soooo long to build one off these!!



We knew from the tag on this engine that it was off a C-119 gunship that flew in Vietnam. We also knew it failed due to metal particles in the oil screen. Upon closer inspection we found some of the reason for those metal particles! The first thing that was spotted was one lobe on the cam had damage.



Next was this lifter roller was also damaged.



This is a look at a good one!



Not sure why there is only damage to one lifter roller and one cam lobe? Maybe you engine guys could enlighten us with your theory of what took place here. That lifter is on the bottom rear cylinder if that helps any.