Wheels and Deals
Due to this the engine assembly work is on hold. After investigating all of my options it looks like the best one
is to just buy a new accessory housing from TCM - to the tune of about $700 (ouch!)
So my plan is like this: since I now have a hangar at the airport (VAR H2) I want to get the gear, wheels and brakes
finished up so that I can have a rolling fuselage which I can then move to the airport freeing up space in VAR H1
allowing me to work on the wings. Now I never thought much about it but the wheels and brakes could be a real potential
party pooper. In other words - they would be REAL expensive to replace if they needed it.
My brake drums look a bit rough
Even the outer surface of this one had lost enough material through corrosion that the aluminum ring was loose and just came right off
Figuring out how to get that to stay on snug will be another obstacle to overcome
These wheels have a high amount of magnesium in them - they're incredibly light weight.
Mine didn't have a particularly good paint job either so they were suseptable to attack from the elements
The drums are steel so there is also a factor of dissimilar metal interaction.
I had to pound the drums out with a drift punch
Here's an example of how they can get eaten up. This might be a problem in a later style wheel
where the bearing is retained with a snap ring in a groove right where all that corrosion damage is
but these wheels use a plate fastened by three screws so I should be cool.
In this picture the bearing cup (race) has been removed
I decided to try honing the drums to see if I could get a decent surface
This is actually a cylinder hone but it just happened to be exactly the right size if I put both drums together facing each other.
I went slow and kept an eye on the dimensions as they are sort of critical due to the mechanical cam
aspect of the brake mechanism. There's no way for wear to be taken up as it is with a hydraulic piston
Obviously I'm not going to be able to remove all of the pitting, some of them are pretty deep but I've still got room to work here
Information I got off the Luscombe forums that originated from Cleveland was that the dimension of the drum should be
5.4275 with a tolerance of .0025 so that calculates to a max id of 5.43 (give me a heads up if my math is wrong)
So I still had some meat to work with and went back to the machine
I stopped somewhere around nominal or slightly over. Obviously .0025 ain't much so it was a compromise
between surface and dimension. Although not perfect it is a vast improvement over what I started with
I think it's gonna work!
The wheels cleaned up pretty good too and I gave them a proper paint job to put a halt to the corrosion
Much better than the previous condition
Almost like new eh?
The shoes themselves show very little wear but as they are a paltry thirty bucks a piece I guess I'll go with new ones
You can see a small crack in this one at the center rivet
After seeing that Garmin 296/396 in panel mount gizmo I had to toy with the idea. In some ways it makes sense
as I could same money on the radios because those 2 1/4 inch Beckers are pretty expensive
This would however mean I'd have to make new subpanels if I wanted to bevel the instument holes
Here's an alternate layout. This probably isn't going to happen as I'm leaning heavily towards the traditional
seven beveled layout with four additional 2 1/4 holes (2 on either side) for the Becker VHF and transponder
as well as a carb temp and volt/amps gauge. The 4 in 1 gauge is a definite either way.
After the trip to Alaska in the Maule I became aware of one thing (that admitedly was exaserbated by the patroller doors)
and that was that there isn't any place to put anything and I was always reaching around to the back seat and I'll admit
I haven't been keeping up with my Yoga exercises so I'm not the limber young buck I once was.
So I am determined to keep both gloveboxes in my design as they really will provide a lot of easily accessible storage.
You gotta admit, this is kinda cool though. I'm definitely going to have one of these so I'll need to figure out where to put it anyway.
Somebody convince me that I should or shouldn't do this. I can't make up my mind!
Once the holes are cut that will be the end of it.
Now on to the 'deals' part. Here it is - VAR H2
It may not look like much but talk about location
I've got half of The Patriots civilian Jet team across from me
They did a show during Fleet Week last month and buzzed the hangars on the way back
I wasn't too quick with the camera that day
In fact I was a bit retarded but hey at least I got some of them in the frame this time!
Soon there's gonna be a gleaming, shiny Luscombe in here. I am really getting psyched about it!
Here's a recon photo of the hacienda with VAR H1 in the backyard
It's been about a month since I tripped out back there and cracked my forehead open
I don't know but it's possible the scar may become a permanent feature
It'll probably be on an APB for me one day
five eleven, one hundred eighty pounds, blue eyes, brown hair
and an inverted V shaped scar on the forehead
Of course, as Bagman, no one would ever know