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The repaired Hall Effect Module for the Light Speed electronic ignition system arrived on Friday. Klaus replaced the seal, cleaned the oil off the circuit board inside, and updated the unit to the latest configuration (the later ones have an oil shield to increase the reliability of the oil seal).

I went out to the airport first thing Saturday morning to put everything back together and do some other maintenance. When working inside the forward baggage bay I discovered the source of the big oil “leak” that had been troubling me. I had a quart of oil in the forward baggage bay, way over on the left side. The quart had fallen on its side, and the seal on the cap had broken (I had climbed to 9,500 ft during the flight when I had the big oil “leak”). The oil that leaked out of the container had gone down the inside of the skin on the left side of the forward fuselage until it reached an angled brace that went down to the lower left corner of the firewall. Then it went down the cockpit side of the firewall and came out between the firewall and the skin on the lower fuselage, then ran along the bottom of the aircraft.

I was very relieved to understand where the oil had come from, and that it was not an engine issue. I had been very puzzled as to why this oil on the belly looked so yellow, when the oil in the engine was a bit brown. I was also completely befuddled why there was oil on the left side of the fuselage bottom, when there was no oil on the left side of the engine.

I did a ground run and a flight test after putting it all back together. Everything is working nicely now.

Next weekend I hope to fly to Oshkosh for the big EAA Fly-In. It’ll be great to meet up with a bunch of old friends.