Let the Annual Begin
It is difficult to believe that it has been a YEAR since the airplane has been finished and flying. Officially it was inspected by the DAR on January 27th, 2006. I have until the end of the month to complete the "Annual Condition Inspection".
Fortunately the weather is not flying weather. We had 2" of ice on the ground for over a week and a snow storm is passing through as I type with expected accumulation of 3-7". Tony at the airport was kind enough to let me squeeze into the maintenance hangar where I could do the work in relative comfort versus freezing my fingers off in the t-hangar.
The process has started. I've removed all the inspection covers, empenage fairing, prop spinner, cowl, baggage wall, seat pans, wing root fairings, wing tips, the works! With 161 hours on the hobbs, I want to be super thorough with the inspection. Things are looking pretty good so far but I have found some issues.
* One of the prop spinner gap brackets has broken on the piece the nutplate is attached too. The other two look just fine, so I don't know why this once broke off
* The manual trim cable was rubbing on the fuselage bottom where it wasn't secured. No damage but I secured it to prevent further rubbing.
* I found that the nut on the flap actuator rod was not on all the way where it attaches to the flap rods. Not sure how that got overlooked! Fortunatly, the nut stayed on.
* The pilot PTT wire had come loose from it's bed of silicone on the fuselage floor, so I fixed that up.
* Right wing landing light lense is cracked in multiple places, I have a replacement for that.
* One broken off screw in the left wing tip that's been there for awhile.
I've completed most of the inside/outside inspection of the fuselage and the wings. I need to go over the engine compartment, correct the issues I've found so far and start buttoning things back up. I should have everything back together by the end of next weekend.
The Annual Continued
I've replaced the landing light lense and fixed the prop spinner. Finished the inspection of the interior and did the fwf inspection. I discovered one of the rubber hoses the holds up the exhaust system had slipped off one of the tubes, easy fix.
The treads on the tires are still in great shape. The brake pads still have some life left in them, so I didn't rotate the tires. I'll probably fly another 50 hours or so and then put on new brakes and rotate the tires to even out the wear.
A bit worrisome is low compression in the #4 cylinder, determined to be leaking from the exhaust valve. The other 3 cylinders were 76/78/76. I spoke to Allen and he said to hit the valve stem a couple of times to get the valve to kinda of 'slap' into the seat maybe breaking up any crud that may have built up. After finishing up the annual and buttoning everything back up, I took it out and flew it hard for awhile, leaning aggressively. Will have to wait until the end of the week to do a follow-up compression test.
Overall the plane was in great shape... a few minor things to fix up but I'm pleased. The question I still get asked is "When are you going to paint it?!" This question is kinda starting to wear on me a bit. If someone wants to cough up the $5k-6k to have it done, I'll do it! Once we get the compression issue resolved, we'll be good to go for another year!
Fortunately the weather is not flying weather. We had 2" of ice on the ground for over a week and a snow storm is passing through as I type with expected accumulation of 3-7". Tony at the airport was kind enough to let me squeeze into the maintenance hangar where I could do the work in relative comfort versus freezing my fingers off in the t-hangar.
The process has started. I've removed all the inspection covers, empenage fairing, prop spinner, cowl, baggage wall, seat pans, wing root fairings, wing tips, the works! With 161 hours on the hobbs, I want to be super thorough with the inspection. Things are looking pretty good so far but I have found some issues.
* One of the prop spinner gap brackets has broken on the piece the nutplate is attached too. The other two look just fine, so I don't know why this once broke off
* The manual trim cable was rubbing on the fuselage bottom where it wasn't secured. No damage but I secured it to prevent further rubbing.
* I found that the nut on the flap actuator rod was not on all the way where it attaches to the flap rods. Not sure how that got overlooked! Fortunatly, the nut stayed on.
* The pilot PTT wire had come loose from it's bed of silicone on the fuselage floor, so I fixed that up.
* Right wing landing light lense is cracked in multiple places, I have a replacement for that.
* One broken off screw in the left wing tip that's been there for awhile.
I've completed most of the inside/outside inspection of the fuselage and the wings. I need to go over the engine compartment, correct the issues I've found so far and start buttoning things back up. I should have everything back together by the end of next weekend.
The Annual Continued
I've replaced the landing light lense and fixed the prop spinner. Finished the inspection of the interior and did the fwf inspection. I discovered one of the rubber hoses the holds up the exhaust system had slipped off one of the tubes, easy fix.
The treads on the tires are still in great shape. The brake pads still have some life left in them, so I didn't rotate the tires. I'll probably fly another 50 hours or so and then put on new brakes and rotate the tires to even out the wear.
A bit worrisome is low compression in the #4 cylinder, determined to be leaking from the exhaust valve. The other 3 cylinders were 76/78/76. I spoke to Allen and he said to hit the valve stem a couple of times to get the valve to kinda of 'slap' into the seat maybe breaking up any crud that may have built up. After finishing up the annual and buttoning everything back up, I took it out and flew it hard for awhile, leaning aggressively. Will have to wait until the end of the week to do a follow-up compression test.
Overall the plane was in great shape... a few minor things to fix up but I'm pleased. The question I still get asked is "When are you going to paint it?!" This question is kinda starting to wear on me a bit. If someone wants to cough up the $5k-6k to have it done, I'll do it! Once we get the compression issue resolved, we'll be good to go for another year!
posted by Matthew at 6:01 PM
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