Some Pawnees had two oil coolers. Be careful with cowl modifications. Moving air around to the right places on the engine is high tech.

Contact: I appreciate the concern. If I end up needing to mod the cowl, I'll be working with temporary fixes that are easily reversed as well as tufting before and after to see any airflow changes. But fingers crossed that it doesn't come to that!

While I was removing the old oil cooler, I noticed a crack that had developed on the baffle. I'd seen it before but thought it was a scratch since the baffles didn't move when I applied pressure to them (to see if it was a crack). After I got it all apart I made a replacement baffle section and a doubler to help support the weight of the oil cooler with the help of a friend. Here's some pics:

Crack and the doubler (still in progress):


The crack pulled apart to see it better:


Old piece next to the new one (still in progress):


Old piece on the left, baffle section reassembled with the new piece and the doubler before I remembered to drill the last 4 holes on the top:


Took me about 3 or 4 hours to get that new piece all made up and re-attached, not too bad.

I plan to re-install the baffles and the new oil cooler on Sunday or Monday evening. More to follow!

Cam,

Cracked baffling is concurrent maintenance/training. I have flown red line running spray planes with ugly baffling too many times . When I asked the boss /mechanic about them, he usually said, "I'll probability wait till it crashes. At that time I was teaching on the Rez. I only sprayed summers and had limited options.

Jim

Do you have some pics of your baffle behind the flywheel?

Thanks

Tom, I'll get you some here in a minute.


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Finally got a minute to work on the plane! (Work has been ridiculous lately)









https://youtu.be/vWl3FCiG654


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CamTom12 wrote:
https://youtu.be/vWl3FCiG654

That thing is so clean...and that is a very nice sound.

Thanks Z!

Tom, I completely forgot to grab those pics. Here's some old ones. Let me know what other angles you want and I'll try to remember next time I'm out there.






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Cam, just a thought, but you might want to find a slim u channel to put on the cutout to seal the outside edge from any air going sideways, looks like there is not much chance of that but one place to look!
How do you keep it that clean??

It looks cleaner in photos, somehow. I scratched that engine mount leg pretty good getting the baffle + cooler assembly reinstalled. I need to touch that up. I try to clean as I go, but I'm not great at it. I think the biggest thing that helps the plane look so clean is that it only has 200 some-odd hours!

I've got a whole heap of siliconing and sealing yet to do. I see the part you're talking about George, I've got a fix for it.


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Here's some more pics of the forward baffle area:

Finished buttoning everything else up today and filled up the tanks with some fresh 93 octane E0. Just giving the RTV some cure time and then on to the FCF. I'll have to wait until next summer to see if it's a true fix in 100 deg F OATs though. It's cooled off significantly here, and the humidity has gone way down as well. I'm not complaining, haha.

Test flight complete and the oil temp issues are a thing of the past!

Buzzed around for an hour or so and did some pattern work. OAT of 78 on the ground, 65 at altitude. Oil temps never went above ~170, even in high power slow flight.

Got back and noticed my exhaust was hanging a little funny, saw an adel clamp that holds the pipes in place busted. Ordered two more that are steel instead of aluminum.

Well I haven't updated this thing in a minute. Mostly because the last post I made was wrong, the high oil temps are in fact back. They're about 15-20 deg cooler than they had been in comparable OATs/Airspeeds, but still much higher than they ought to be.

I had a 3 month period of not flying my plane much due to work and getting sick and weather, but out of that slump and ready to fix this problem again!

Of my last 4 flights, 3 were nothing more than local traffic patterns for 1.2-1.4 hrs each, and my flight today was a look at a fix for my oil cooling problem. I've got more on that in my "Weird oil temp issue" thread.

Buzzed around today for a while after I got to the hangar and realized I forgot my compression tester again.

I had planned to just do some flying around but it was really bumpy so I decided to hop by a friend's airfield to see if he was home. His hangar door was open, so I swung around to land and taxied up in front of his hangar. He's our chief test pilot and built an AMAZING RV-7 a few years ago. We took turns oogling each other's airplanes and then swapping rides with each other. He had some hangar projects he needed to get back to and I wanted to get fuel before it got dark so I departed for Winchster for fuel. They have 100LL for very comparable prices to what I can get 93 octane ethanol free in town with the added benefit that I don't have to hook up and drag a trailer down the highway in my 4cyl SUV. I'd prefer the E-0 fuel, but I don't prefer the hassle. Anyway, I got to log a fun 1.9 today in my plane as well as fly some acro in my friend's RV.

Most of my flying over the past fill up has been traffic patterns, but I logged 9.4 hours between fill ups and topped off with 50.8 gallons. That's 5.4 cumulative GPH - pretty cool.

Here's some pictures, though I didn't take many since it was bumpy until my flight back home.

A few of the many little lakes in southern TN:




It wasn't nearly as windy as this smoke cloud would have you believe:


About as close to alpenglow as we'll ever get here in north AL:


My delta pressure for most of the day:


Closing up the hangar after a great Saturday afternoon!

Glad to see you are out and about! (You should probably keep the man-o-meter to yourself)

CFOT wrote:Glad to see you are out and about! (You should probably keep the man-o-meter to yourself)

It's pegged!

https://youtu.be/AplnM7gJKYI

Buzzed around to nowhere in particular today for a 2.9. Would have enjoyed smoother air but overall it was a great day. I'll throw some pics up tomorrow.


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CamTom12 wrote:... I wanted to get fuel before it got dark so I departed for Winchster for fuel. They have 100LL for very comparable prices to what I can get 93 octane ethanol free in town with the added benefit that I don't have to hook up and drag a trailer down the highway in my 4cyl SUV. I'd prefer the E-0 fuel, but I don't prefer the hassle. .... That's 5.4 cumulative GPH - pretty cool. ....

Lots of people seem to dislike it, but I prefer to do my fueling from 5 gallon cans.
I burn 80% mogas, but IMHO it's less hassle to just fill up every fifth can at the 100LL pump and pour it in the airplane by hand.
Most "5 gallon" cans actually hold a bit more, all five of mine hold 5.5.
If your average overall fuel burn is that low, 3 cans would be good for 3 hours and will easily fit into the back of an SUV or a car trunk.

hotrod180 wrote:

CamTom12 wrote:... I wanted to get fuel before it got dark so I departed for Winchster for fuel. They have 100LL for very comparable prices to what I can get 93 octane ethanol free in town with the added benefit that I don't have to hook up and drag a trailer down the highway in my 4cyl SUV. I'd prefer the E-0 fuel, but I don't prefer the hassle. .... That's 5.4 cumulative GPH - pretty cool. ....

Lots of people seem to dislike it, but I prefer to do my fueling from 5 gallon cans.
I burn 80% mogas, but IMHO it's less hassle to just fill up every fifth can at the 100LL pump and pour it in the airplane by hand.
Most "5 gallon" cans actually hold a bit more, all five of mine hold 5.5.
If your average overall fuel burn is that low, 3 cans would be good for 3 hours and will easily fit into the back of an SUV or a car trunk.

I don't mind hand filling from cans, but I already own a 100gal fuel tank on a trailer that I put an electric pump on. High class, right?

When/if Winchester's prices start separating from the E0 93 octane I'll start running mogas again with my trailer again.