2004 Flight from KKLS

2004 Flight from KKLS
This photo is from when I was flying the airplane out of Longview, WA. This was taken early in the morning..

RV-6 #25188 in flight

RV-6 #25188 in flight
Doug Eves sent this photo of the Ol' girl in flight. Taken from the ground, this is a great shot. You can see he is "relaxing" in his office in the sky...

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Installing rocker arms

I tried installing the rocker arms and push rods. I have all 73434 push rods. The 34 indicates the length of the rod. 35, 36,37 are all increasinsly longer. They make these for overhauled engines that need longer rods to make up for material that has been ground off camshafts and tappets. I installed them by oiling down the push rods first. I took a syringe and sucked oil up into it. I then have a blunt needle that I put on and inject oil down inside the push rod. This gets some oil in there for startup and keeps out the corrosion out. I insert the rod into the tube and then set whatever cylinder I am working on at TDC on the compression stroke. I take the lubed up rocker arms and install the by pushing down on the push rod with the rocker arm and getting the rocker arm shaft lined up with all of the holes. It sounds easy but is harder when everything is lubed up and slick. Once both intake and exhaust are done it's get out the feeler gauges and check clearances on the arm to the stem/or cap. It needs to be >.028 and <.080. All of my intakes are over .080. Something is wrong. Lycoming used to have two styles of rocker arms, one for exhaust and one for intake. ECI sent one length of rods and one style of rocker arms. On a new engine I should not have over .080 valve clearance. I sent Aerosport a e-mail to see if I am doing it wrong or don't have the right parts. All of my other engines are flying around fine. Granted they were overhauled and I had to buy different lengths of pushrods. This is engine building and you have to do whatever it takes to make it right. So for now I will sit and wait. Maybe even have a beer!

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