Warbird Information Exchange

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S !!!!!!!

to everyone involved .......

AGAIN !

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Blue Skies .....

Peter

Consolidated by US state ~ see if there's a heavy bomber tour stop coming to an airport near you ...... http://www.bomberflight.info

Warbirdapps on facebook ~ every day a new image from my personal journey thru the world of warbirds ..... https://www.facebook.com/Warbirdapps

For your Friday entertainment... All pics by Spanner this time
TAKING WORK HOME

And Ladies... can you imagine it...He's STILL single!!!
Two B17 control rods air drying in the house. I didn't want them to get rained on while I was at work.
Note the signed D-Day anniversary poster and the round engine nose cone on the hearth... Straight from the Planet of Da Guys!

B17 Throttle and Mixture rods Windchimes

Another view of the freshly painted Throttle and Mixture control rods.
And the most useless cat on the gall darned planet!!! Maggie!

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Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

Engine #2 getting the test club installed

SPANNER looking heroic... Actually thinking to himself, "HOW LOUD WOULD IT BE IF THAT STRAP LETS GO???"
Col. Ken wondering what spiffy new dance steps he's going to learn on his upcoming Cruise with the little Lady.

Photos by Col. Kevin Hong
How beautiful can one set of throttle and mixture control rods get?
This picture is so ugly it "Could be a Modern Art Masterpiece!"

Amazingly enough NO TWO engines has exactly the same set up on the firewall controls. And of course the manuals treat them as if they do.
The only differentiation I have found is whether they are inboard or outboard engine controls.

These are engine #2's and have actually ALREADY been stripped and lubricated (since the photo was taken last Thursday.)
The L brackets were back on the firewall before I left 8:30 Sat night.
The rods are treated and await painting at the Hacienda Del Diez y Siete.

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Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

Terrific & Insightful Thread.

Thanks for posting all the pictures with the supporting information.

John

Is that an E-Type Jaguar in the garage?

Dean the sports car nut!

You mean the '62 E-Type next to the '52 XK120?
Vanity post!

Yeah I like things that leak oil!
Curtis-Wright round engines, Jaguars, etc.

And to WW2 John... Yeah, sometimes I like to stray away from the strictly dry, "We used 6 AN3-12 bolts torqued to 30 inch pounds" kind of posts. Although I will add that the ambient temperature today...cold... made it hard for the primer to stick to the control rods worth a darn.

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Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

Have you done the Chevy conversion to your Jag or do you still (by some miracle) have an original, running motor in it?

I have worked my way through the firewall forward Throttle and Mixture parts of all four engines now.

It is apparent that the airplane was going to have control issues at some point fairly soon if the bearings had not been cleaned, lubricated and in some cases, replaced entirely.

While some of bearings were probably corroded due to the airplanes engines having been stripped and the Wings being left out in the elements, some of the problem areas were due to some of the bearings being left coated with engine oil and the oil congealing over time.

The other fault corrected is that King Kong tightened a bunch of the fasteners without benefit or reference to a torque wrench.
That indented some of the brackets and led to needing to shim some of the inner surfaces with thin profile washers.

Like ALL good projects I started out thinking I was only going to do the rods from the firewall forward.
Then my eyeballs and my conscience took over and I am working my way back from the firewalls and finding the inner nacelle bearings to be gunked over. I have only disassembled one, so no trend has jumped out at me. I suspect that I am looking at factory original fasteners in this part of the system, but that is just an EWAG at this juncture.

Unless I find something truly "You Guys Just Gotta See This" noteworthy I will not photograph every nut and bolt on this project.

There is a serrated square locking tab underneath the washers on some of the L shaped brackets. Does anybody know where any of these boogers can be obtained? One of the brackets just had three flat washers stacked where the locking tab should have been. As the kids say, "Dat Ain't Right!"

WE hope to run #2 Engine this Sat. 3/07/09

Report back as soon as I know something.

SPANNER

PS- CAP FLYER- I wouldn't have a Jag without the original type engine in it. The straight 6 double overhead cam is a great, but leaky engine.
That being said... I wouldn't have a Jag engine with the original Lucas Ignition system in it. I have variously used modern "drop-in" breakerless ignitions and Mallory Dual-Point distributors and I try to NEVER leave home with a Lucas fuel pump on a car of any vintage.

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Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

Ahhhhh!! Joseph Lucas, Prince of Darkness strikes again!

I knew a guy that stripped everything that had Lucas written on it, replaced with Bosch and completely rewired his Range Rover he was having that much trouble!

There is the right way, the wrong way and the British way of doing things. Very evident in their aeroplanes!

Sorry to drift off topic, but I couldn't resist!

Good lord, people put Chevy engines in Jags? I thought nothing was a greater abomination than putting a Wright in a Sea Fury, but this could be it.

August

I would guess that the poster had never owned a British automobile.

I bought one, a new A-H, while serving in the USAF in France in 1963. Thanks to the Lucas electrics in it, I soon learned that I would never own another.

OT, but pertinent to other posts above

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Steve Turner, USAF aircraft refueler 54+ years ago.

August, John Radovich (owner of John's Cars - http://www.johnscars.com/) has been doing a conversion of Jags for 20 years. He didn't originate the idea, but he's been one of the more successful people to do the conversions. The difference is that you take a pretty good British Car with a less-than-acceptable drivetrain (which is the case on many older Jags) and make it a great car with a great drivetrain that is much less prone to failure than the original.

Browse the site, it's got a lot of good information on the problems that the Jags in particular have encountered over the years.

Well, it ain't original, but it is nice to see and hear 'em fly. If it takes a good engine to make it happen, then so be it.

Gary

We had another nice engine run Saturday as number 2 brought its seven year slumber to an end. Number 2 took a minute or so to smooth out, but overall seriously challenged number 1 for best sounding engine.

I also got the oil and particle (yes particle!) analysis back from the number 4 engine this week. The small metal flakes were aluminum, and there were no signs of elevated lead or silver bearing materials. I'll take that.

Four engines down and none to go! We are truly back in business.

We also got the right flap back on Saturday.

Keep your fingers crossed--- we've got some heavy lifting coming up in the next few weeks,
-David Carr

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B-17 Texas Raiders --- Maintenance Officer

OFFICIALLY HIJACKING THE THREAD BACK.

As David noted... We ran Engine #2 this Saturday.
What he didn't tell you was Oh My Gawd, we bent the test prop!

The second run was cut short when our piece of Sight-tubing ballooned out to the size of a Baked Potato. We removed it and carried on.


Fortunately the prop straightened itself out when we turned off the engine!

It was way past margarita time after we got the flap on the right wing hung, so apologies... No photos of it until next time.

_________________
Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.