Warbird Information Exchange

Must fight the temptation to call you Bones.............Yes with me its the finances as I'm certainly no Jerry Yagen ha ha. I've got a huge pile of parts (with this "new" one enough for two Austers, at least airframe wise. I hope to sell off some of the surplus not to make money but to give me more space!

Great project!

I thought I recognized lots of Gipsy parts on the floor there. Crankshaft blinds to me, means your engine is in tidbits. Were those bronze heads I saw there? I've recently assembled a set for our Tiger Moth. She is a Canadian registered "A" model. Google "N42DH" to see some pics. That was her identity for the last 30 years or so.
Make sure the springs make the load test. That's real important. If you have any Gipsy questions I've got a real good support group of knowledgeable folks.
All the best. I'll check in time to time.

Andy Scott

Thanks Andy I'll do that. Might be getting some Alloy heads but yes they are bronze heads you see there. Well spotted!

Dr.McCoy is my favorite Star Trek character. He was a refreshing break from the portrayal of
us McCoys as outlaws hillbillys etc. Once I had a c-worker(in my old real estate firm) if I was
had any relation to the McCoys of the Hatfield and McCoy feud. I said "Yes" "I'm also Hatfield
on my mother's side..." (Gr Granpa) -"So I guess thye got along eventually.."

My latest score (no not the Tomahawk! ha ha) The mortal remains of J5F ZK-BRA. The result of hitting pine trees thnakfully with no serious injuries or loss of life!
Tempted to get the Harvard too!

An Auster and a Tramahawk!!!

Had one of those happy accidents which happens now and again in the restoration of old aircraft/cars /motorcyles.
I had bought an airchute (duct really) for the Gipsy major which arrived yesterday. This bolts onto the left side of the cylinders and directs the air coming into the intake on the nose cowling onto the cooling fins of the engine cylinders.
I bought a three piece duct which looked correct after consulting the engine manual. However what I should have been consulting was the Parts manual as you will see.
When I got the new part home I tried to figure out how it went together. Two parts forming the longitudinal part of the duct were there, but I couldn't figure out why the part i had (called the rear) didn't seem to line up.
I went and consulted my Gipsy major manual and had a forehead smacking moment.
The rear part of the chute is called the rear baffle and i hadn't got that at all.
There were clearly TWO styles of airchute, one for the early Gipsy major and one for the later marks.
I had got the later mark chute and what i thought was the "rear" or rear baffle was actually the rear HALF of an early chute!! Bugger.
So Saturday saw me nip out to have a chat with my friend Anthony(who is rebuilding a Auster T7) and show him the bits I had and have a look at his parts manual, then look through all his airchute parts he had to try and find an end plate for mine.
As we sipped coffee and studied the manual we both realised something.
My Auster has the Gipsy Major 1 series engine so would use the early airchute.
Anthony has the later Gipsy Major 10-2 (used on the MK 6 and 7 Austers and also Chipmunks).
I had bought the later airchute.
He had the early model airchute.

You guessed it, we swapped! I now have the correct airchute for my engine and Anthony has the correct one for his! (Although he will need to find the rear baffle).
Just so you can see what I've been going on about here are the parts book exploded views:
This is the early style. Not shown clearly is the fact that the item marked "Scoop" is actually two parts and I had bought a rear half and not the item marked "rear baffle"



And the later one. I had bought items 2 and 6.



And this is the early rear half of the airchute "scoop". This is NOS (New Old Stock) and I now have a couple of them with the bits Anthony has traded with me. ;D


So a good day in the Auster world!

Hey nice score!
You gotta love it when cooperation between people headed in a similar direction works to everyones benefit!
I made that exact part for a Tiger Moth that I was flying at the time. It was a pretty round learning curve and took me a long time to complete it.
Just as I had finished it a gentleman with a lot of experience said "you should cut that in two with the bandsaw because they always crack.
He cut his in half, from front to rear, then rejoined it with leather, rivets and washers. He said that "it's gonna crack anyway, this way I get to decide where!"
Well I didn't have the heart to cut my creation, but I promised to monitor it. I actually was looking at it yesterday and it still looks good.

Another fellow with a lot of Gipsy experience stressed the importance of good baffles. He heard of a guy who omited the inter cylinder baffle (didn't know better I guess) and trashed his freshly rebuilt engine in one flight!!

Andy Scott

Yeah there's usually a good reason for bits on engines, leaving them off is heading into unknown territory usually. Yes my friend Anthony has been a great help. Due to the previous owner not protecting cleaned/degreased parts I had rust on my main bearing studs of my dismantled Gipsy Major. We went through a few boxes in his garage and found a complete set of studs all nice and oily. So that's another item ticked off the needs list!
And yes if I didn't find an airscoop I was going to make one, wasn't looking forward to that as my sheet-metal skills are unknown ha ha.

I'm not sure if the Auster has fuel pumps on the engine but that is what the two holes on that baffle/scoop are for. They act as blast tubes to cool the pumps. If there are no fuel pumps, then plug those holes cause they'll just leak air where it isn't needed.
No fuel pumps on the Tiger moth cause it's gravity fed. I always say that if gravity fails, we've got bigger problems .

Andy Scott

Yep she has fuel pumps and now I know what those holes are for! So much still to learn..............

Just because an aircraft is newer doesn't mean parts aren't a headache. I helped a friend trace
down a simple wheel axle for a left main on a C-172. Just because Cessna changed part suppliers they changed number in this particular year and later (1997 as I recall) so,even if the part is identical the
Feds here in the USA do not look at it as the same part. We had fun.. Cessna was 90 day out on delivery,and they finally found one in a Boneyard..
Enjoying this saga...

Yes the old liabilty issue I suppose? Must be a nightmare when you know the part is right but the numbers say they aren't.

That and the FAA ...

Yeah we have the CAA here.......same issues