November 19, 2003

Tonight while Jen was at work I got a few hours of productivity over at the hangar. I finished up the breather tube setup. I decided against using a whistle slot, after much deliberation, because I haven't heard any consistent opinions on the how and where...just that some people have 'em, and some people don't. And of those who don't, the ones who aim the breather at the exhaust have never had much oil on the belly. So here's what I ended up with...the 5/8" ID hose runs from the breather fitting on the accessory case down along the firewall, where it's clamped and transitions to 5/8" aluminum tubing, which goes down and points at the exhaust.

Here's a front view that shows the little bend I had to make. I would have liked to orient the hose on the "other side" of the adel clamp (top of the photo) since the hose is right up against the heat bypass exit, but if I had moved it further left, the aluminum tubing would have needed to S-turn around the engine mount. I know it doesn't look like it, but trust me...to get the hose/tubing to point at the exhaust as opposed to in between stacks, it had to be this way.

Here's a closer view of the end. It looks crowded in there, and it is. The tubing is about 3/8" away from the engine mount nut, but the tubing isn't a movable part. I used about 5/8" to 3/4" clearance between the tube end and the exhaust. This should give the engine enough "wiggle" room, while still keeping the breather tube close enough so that (a) the oil spat out burns off, and (b) the tube won't be prone to freezing, at least at the lower end.

While I was in there I decided to secure the starter wire to the intake tube. Otherwise it would be able to flop and vibrate around a bit more than I'm comfortable with.

Finally the glue was dry and I finished drilling the elevator tip to the right elevator. At this point I had just drilled the holes to #40...I then went and enlarged them to #40. The fit of this tip is pretty abysmal. It's definitely going to take some glassing and filling for me to be happy with this one.

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Dan Checkoway ()