Sam James & his RV-4.5

Sam James & his RV-4.5

Spent the morning in La belle & had breakfast with the RV Legend-

Sammy James

Sammy was really accommodating and allowed me to try on his custom Fastback, Slider RV-4 (.5). I was concerned about switching over from the tip-over traditional RV-4 style to a "Slider" with that forward canopy roll bar in my face.

There was a cool story behind the Navy Wings mounted on the dash...

Here is a view of the slide

View of the latching system in the open position.

Back up to Lakeland. This is the current state of affairs with my bird...

Im trying to get an idea of the lines that the fastback would have.

I m going to need to remove this roll bar and either modify it or replace it if i am going to use the canopy rails for the sliders.

I have seen the earphone jacks for pilot and passenger places in this location and like the idea of the centrally located position. I will need to find and alternative location for that ELT antenna though.

Look at all those HOLES!!!

There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the existing fuel pump or selector but if everything else is getting replaced... and I'm in here... I might as well. I have had my eye on one of those Andair valves with the anodized handle.

The passenger floor had been riveted down and I don't feel like redoing it so I plane to mount the electric flap motor on this bulkhead. I have seen it done before and I like the idea of being able to access it easily if need be.

Im slowly adding to the collection of "Removed"parts. I do not think Im going to put that throttle back in. At least not in the front.

I know Im getting ahead of myself a little but I took delivery of my new Vetterman's exhaust today. It looks great and I cant wait to hear how it sounds. I was test fitting the pipes and it seems that the provided hardware is a different size than what my block requires. It had been a long day and Ill check that more later. Maybe I'm just tired.

Hopefully removed for the last time. There she sits, waiting for that final fitting and to have all her veins and arteries hooked up. Thats is my old climb prop in the background. It an unknown make and pitched way to aggressively but it got me home in a pinch and was a lot of fun around the local patch.

Engine removed

Engine Removed

Plane moved from "my" hanger over to Jay's Hanger for the more intense work.

That's me, making airplane noises and thinking about getting this thing back into the air...

This is Jay Kurtz. He is being kind enough to offer up his hanger, shop and experience helping me make the planned changes to this bird.

Jay claims to embrace "new technology". More on that later...  -->


<-- This is Jays favorite color. More on that later too...

This is the current set-up of the brakes, cylinders and rudder pedal. I'm planning on replacing the plastic lines with steel braided or at least something better. I'm told, or at least Ive read that the brakes on some of the earlier model -4's that the breaks were called for to be installed what many consider to be upside down causing issues when it comes to bleeding the breaks. I'm going to look into changing them to right side up if its just as ease as flipping the cylinders.

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Here are a couple of shots looking back down the tunnel to the rear. I guess I'm going to be spending some time in there when it comes time to putting the new turtle deck on.



This is a view of the front stick and the plumbing of the standard electric fuel pump and the fuel selector valve.

It was set up with a return line and I like the idea of having a return line for the usual reasons but Jay is pretty insistent that we not plumb it back in.

I'm planning on purchasing a new Andair fuel selector with the pretty red anodized handle.

Going to have to replace that grip as well...

Wing Removal

 Wing Removal

(Without using the Wing Removal Stick)

Today was a pretty big day in the dissassembly of the -4. My friend from down south was in the area passing through and stopped by to bring me lunch and help with the heavy lifting. He had never worked on an airplane before and did it partly for the bragging rights.

 Some shots of the cleaned out interior. (instrument panel removed) I'm looking forward to getting some uniform paint coloring in there.

W&B

It seems that the w/b may have been so pencil whipped that it is causing issue finding the correct info to set the cg off of in my paperwork supplied by the previous owner.

Ive been spending time on vaf researching. It seems a that a quick and easy way of doing the w/b for an rv-4 is to weigh the planes tail in level flight attitude and try to achieve as close to 50 lbs as possible, any heavier and I have aft cg and lighter and it nose heavy. Im sure there is a 5 pound range or so that will affect the useful load... Sounds like the "good ole boy method" to me....

At one point, as I mentioned, the guy helping me seemed to think that I would need to install a metal prop. Im not sure what the verdict is now. He has told me at one point it was nose heavy and we need to move the battery back and more recently it now he is saying it seems to be tail heavy (after he met with another RV friend of his). I need to find out more on the right way to figure this out myself I guess.

Annual Inpspection

Ok, so aside form my motor woes there were other things to think about especially while I had the motor off. The early Rv-4's were different the the later models in a few ways. One of which that is of the most concern to me were the Firewall/Motor-mount Gusset reinforcement brackets.

I ordered a set from Vans and set about removing the old and installing the new. The first rivets on the plane that I drilled and subsequently pounded in too. Unfortunately the guy helping me suggested what I later found out to be the incorrect rivets and I would have to drill them all out again and set the correct flush rivets.

Around this time I was realizing that the help I had hired was less than enthralled about my project and doing anymore work on it than absolutely necessary. I first had my suspicions while shopping for a replacement motor. Nothing seemed to be "ok" in his book. Not because he actually checked any of my prospects out just because of one reason or another. So I finally found what I thought might be a solution.

This particular guy that was helping me had built a RV-3 with his dad many many moons ago that he still had and was in the middle of building a RV-4 when he started helping me with my project. He had a dyno-focal mount and a matching 0-320 he was planning to put on his -4. He had said he got the motor from a guy who said it was a first run timed out motor. I had known about it and was looking for something similar but with nothing being acceptable i decided to offer him what he paid for the motor plus a 1k finders fee but he had to trade me motor mounts (mine was conical mount) and the match drilled gear legs. I had the short gear he already had the long. So we ended up trading because he wanted to switch the motors on his flying -3 and soon to be done -4 anyway.

So I finally had a motor that my mentor would approve of hanging on the plane (mostly because it involved no extra work).

Searching for an Engine.

All of January was spent searching for and engine that was within my budget and that the guy helping me with the engine swap was willing to help put in. Come to find out I guess it didn't matter what engine it was, he wasn't wanting to help anymore.

Some things I would like to address aside from the engine durring the annual.

Landing and Taxi Lights need the lenses replaced.

Wingtip Lenses are no better. I would like to get some of the LED Nav lights

 The Rear Stick has a mild bend in it I noticed. The foam has a rip in it due to my wrapping the seatbelt over it for use as a gust lock. Id like to get some new grips in the future.





This is the current Throttle set-up for the pilot, there is no rear throttle installed. Im thinking of buying a new nicer throttle for the pilot and moving this one aft for the GIB. The Bulkhead that it is attached to blocks your wrist and forces it into a funny angle when mounted in front of that brace. Even with it on the bulkhead and sticking out some it is still a funny angle and ill need to change it sometime in the future. It used to have vernier style controls but the previous owner installed these instead.

Maybe after I have got to fly it some more I will pull all the steam gauges and convert to glass...

12-27-2010

I get the estimate to repair the motor from Zepher.

:,(

$15,900.00

For Starters...

I wish I had taken more pictures at the start of this process but I didn't. I knew it was going to be a little more than just a usual run of the mill Annual Inspection. I was going to have to get into this aircraft pretty deep which is why I enlisted some help.

Flying or driving up to Lakeland from Punta Gorda was something I was willing to do to have the help with the project. The first order of business was to pull the motor. So with everything unhooked, it came off with ease and we had it on the trailer to be dropped off at Zephyr Engines for a teardown and inspection.

I had been flying behind this motor for about a year now with no vibrations or particularities of any kind. I had flown from ID, where I purchased it in '09, over to WY and then down to UT, AZ, NM, TX and clear around the Gulf Coast back home to FL in the following weeks. I had then taken her from FL to OH with a side-trip to DC and the Eastern Shore. All with never having had any engine issues. According the logs and the seller the engine had had a complete OH and had less the 100 hrs on the rebuild when sold to me. So I felt confident in the motor and in making the long trips.

If I had known then what I was about to learn from the engine shop, I probably would have never made the trip back to FL with the plane from where I bought it in Mountain Home, ID! *Get a Prebuy! In the words of the engine shop, " the motor looks as if the parts had been left sitting in a bucket of water". They told me there was "pretty sever pitting" on many of the components and quoted about 15k to put it all back together with a fresh rebuild. *Also probably a pretty good deal in retrospect.

Well I was and still am pretty peeved about how I feel I got snookered on the logs and engine but when I didn't get a prebuy I guess I can only blame myself. Still, I'm not sure that a prebuy would have caught what I think was a falsification of the Engine and possibly the A/F Logs. Zephyr did go on to explain to me that there are overhauls and then there are "overhauls". -and that the seller could have done a "field overhaul", albeit not a very good one. None of which made me feel any better about the situation.

Flying to get Annual Inspection

The first Annual inspection is due in Nov. of 2010...

I found a guy who said he would assist me, so I flew formation with my Dads C172 from PGD to X06, South Lakeland.

 You can see in the top picture that I have scraped the paint off the wings (mostly) and the rest of the plane (mostly).

 I took these pictures from the cockpit on my Htc-Evo. I'm not sure why the bottom is lopped off the one picture.