Print
Hits: 2254

I finally out to the airport Sunday morning to preserve the RV-8 engine. It will be several months before I fly the aircraft again, and the air will get more moist as summer arrives, so there was a significant risk of engine corrosion.

Chris H., a local RV-8 builder picked me up and drove me to the airport. RV-8 builders/flyers Mark R. and John P. showed up to help, alone with RV-7A builder Jim M. I rolled around in my wheelchair and supervised as they pulled the aircraft out, ran it to warm up the oil, and drained the oil. Then they poured in the AeroShell Fluid 2F preservative oil, and did another short engine run. Then they pulled the upper plugs, sprayed fogging oil in the cylinders, installed desiccant plugs, blocked off the exhaust pipe exits and the intake filter. This should keep things nice and dry in there for several months.

Thanks to everyone for their help. It was great to get this done, and it did me a lot of good to get out of the house for the morning.

Here we see Mark running the engine to warm the oil up. It felt quite weird to see someone else running the aircraft. Mark has a longer torso than I do, so he barely fit under the canopy. Good thing he doesn’t hane much hair on top.