Question Flying an Apache

We got the prop governor looked at by H&H Propeller and they reported back that the unit just needed adjustment. So good news! No real repair needed and they set it up properly (pun intended!). It has been reinstalled on the right engine. While we were in there (those expensive words again!) we found that a "support" (I don't know what else to call it) had the attach point for one of three legs broken. So it was removed and my friend that is an excellent welder took a few minutes with his gas acetylene torch to repair it. I was able to select some left over 4130 chrome moly tubing from our Bearhawk project that worked just fine. So really no cost to this repair other than the little bit of extra driving. My mechanic will file it down and dress it out and drill it and it'll be good to go.

The right engine also has new gaskets on the intake manifold, carburetor and air intake box. That should solve the roughness and low idle issues at low power settings.

No lost time as both my mechanic and I have been nose-to-the-grindstone with work stuff. The next few weeks look better so we should have the proof of the repairs very soon.

This is the repaired foot just after welding it. No dressing it up yet. 
 

This is a look at the entire prop control cable support. Notice my buddies work bench and how shop worn it is. We have done a lot of work building Bearhawk parts here and he has built MANY hotrods on this table as well.
 
 

I think we all know how this is going at this point! More progress and more frustration. The good news is that we are only dealing with issues that we already had, not new ones. But it's time to finally finish this Whack-A-Mole maintenance!

We knew we had an engine that got rough. After all the ignition issues we had with the P-Leads we turned back to ignition even though trouble shooting initially ruled it out. We found a spark plug wire that was "intermittent" so that became a leading suspect although on weak evidence. However, after all this work it didn't seem smart to keep an obviously OLD harness. So we bought a new set of harnesses. They only came in RED. So we now have red ignition harnesses and I like them!   

Once we got the harness we wanted to get them on the right engine to test and see if it fixed our issue. Then we found out my new harness was made for -40E spark plugs and I had -38E. So of course I upgraded to -40 as they are a bit more robust. Once installed I test flew the plane. It runs great! Except when airborne and at low power settings (about 20 inches of manifold or less). Now that we have "isolated" the roughness we think it is related to the intake manifold or carburetor. 

But, the right prop had been slow to feather on run up. So are pulling off the prop governor to get sent off and repaired. While it is out we will chase down the manifold leak problem. We are still working on the CHT issue with the GEM and we *think* it will require a new gauge. So hopefully that too will get resolved. The final piece is the flap gauge and that requires a little attention to repair it and put it back in. I have just been eyeballing the flaps but it should be fixed too. Oh, and service the hydraulic filter. 

So that's the "final" list I HOPE!

While doing my "test flight" I wanted to see how fast I could push Annie. So at 5,500 ft and 23 x 2500 I got an average of 167 mph. For some reason I seem to always post the "slow" leg so this time I made sure to capture the fast speed. So here's evidence that it isn't just Mooneys that are fast at 201 mph! Of course I had to have a 35 mph tailwind to get that ground speed! The speed was rising and dropping and at one point I had 206 mph showing but it also dropped to 196. The North South legs were right at 167 mph each so I'm pretty confident of that speed.
 

In truth I was at a higher than typical cruise power setting to get that speed, about 79%. So I would not normally use such a high (and thirsty!) power setting. More typical for me is about 65% and 135 kts but at least now I have proof I can do 145 KTAS if needed. 

 

Jen, I thought there'd be more fun flying and less test flying!! My new nickname for Annie is "Double Trouble"

Today was more of the same. Forward progress and frustration. We got some work done on the cometics by closing the gap in the panel and painting it. We also swapped the gauges again to help determine if the issue is with the gauge or something else. Once we finished that I test flew the plane so we could see how the gauges did. The problem seemed to stay with the left gauge (we had swapped connectors so the left engine went to the right gauge). No change. But then the right engine started running rough. Not terrible but enought to definitely notice. So we quickly returned to home base at reduced power setting. I flew a short abbreviated pattern and final. Once on the ground we ran up the engines enough to know it was the right engine and it was not magneto related (the roughness stayed regardless of which ignition was selected). SO.....

At this point we *think* it may be a stuck valve. I'm hoping that's what it is as we should be able to deal with it tomorrow. If not we may be looking at new cylinder. So far as the GEM goes Insight Tech Support told us a couple things to check before we send the gauge back for repair. So tomorrow maybe we can get some more done!

We made an angle to help close the gap and give a little stiffness to the area we cut open. The flat black paint helps hide it.


 

The panel is getting close to what I envision as being "done". We still have the left hand sub-panel to paint and label but otherwise it's pretty much done. We don't have the top to the panel in place as we have been leaving it off for access to the back of the panel. So that will go back on when we are done. At some point we will do a final "finish" coat of paint to get everything looking as good as possible but for now I'm happy with the visual progress.