nitromancer

My Feedback: (4)

I maidened my new Pacific Aero Edge 540 60/100 Saturday and while I have determined this to be the best flying plane I have ever flown, the flights were plagued with engine problems. The engine, an O.S. .61 FX would run perfect on the ground and ran perfect in the previous plane it was in. The problems came shortly after takeoff. It would sputter and die after about 4 minutes of flight. We checked the temperature - 168 degrees. I replaced all the fuel line and fuel tank to no avail. We tweaked and tweaked the low and high speed needles, resulting in three short flights Saturday with 2 dead sticks, Sunday three more short flights with near dead sticks. And another reason I love this plane is it glides like a trainer. I went home today thoroughly disgusted with this seemingly difficult to solve problem. After a beer it dawned on me how the needle valve extension vibrated all over the place with any more than about 1/3 throttle, and eureka, you readjusted the high speed needle several times from an inexplicable three+ turns open down to the normal just over one turn open setting. So I fueled up in the basement, cowl off and tested the hypothesis. Start up, throttle up, high speed needle extension vibrates all over the place and spins the valve open! On the end of the ~2 inch extension I put a wheel collar to be able to turn it easier , rather than the usual 90 degree bend. I removed the collar and started up again success!

blikseme300

My Feedback: (118)

Glad you found the problem. I had a similar experience years ago. Since then I never use extensions. If I need to reach deep into a cowl to do adjustments I use a long ball driver. This mates with the head of a cap screw which is soldered to the end of the needle.

Safe Flying!