Hi everyone! Sorry its been so long since I updated WIX, and thanks to Bluehawk15 for doing it for me. We've been really busy at the Cobra Den pulling winter maintenance on our two Tora birds, the P-39, and the Yellow Rose. Looks like we'll be ready for a great flying season. In addition to the normal winter maintenance, we've been making progress on the P-63.
The cleaning of the fuselage interior is going well and we hope to be ready to spray primer inside soon. The weather will be a big driver on that. We've removed most of the control cables and the new cable and hardware should be here this week. The water pump and the wiring harness should be off of the engine Wednesday and shipped for overhaul. A new windshield will be fabricated soon. We had a special coupling made to allow us to extend the main landing gear with the wings removed from the plane. We got the gear extended and began removing wheels, bearings and brakes. Today, we pulled the struts apart and cleaned everything up. We found new seals locally and already have them in hand. Once we get the struts back together, we can inspect and adjust the brakes, re-pack the bearings, and put the wheels on. With that accomplished, we can put the wings back on the plane! We had a socket custom made for the 4 big nuts that attach the wings. Here are a few photos of the landing gear work.
We raised the gear carefully to avoid stress on the worm gear. The wheel was manually lifted as we cranked the gear shaft.
The right strut seals had failed and the fluid and gas were long gone.
Here, the left gear is fully extended and the wheel removed. This strut didn't collapse.
This view of the left gear shows the brake assembly.
A very dirty left gear lower strut with brakes still attached.
This project should get exciting as we are just about at the point where we begin assembling the aircraft. Its a GREAT feeling to see things going back together, though there is still a lot to do!
More soon!
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