madman75

I've got a DL 50 that I bought new about 3 years ago. It never really did run right from day one. It always started easy but I had to tweek the LSN just about every time I flew the plane. I would find it rich from low throttle to midrange on one flight and I would adjust the LSN a little leaner. It would run fine for that flight but on the next one it would be to lean and I would have to adjust the LSN rich again. WOT was the only way it ran fine. I flew it this past Sunday and it was doing the same thing. In the past I just thought it was not broke in yet but this is ridiculous. Out of 3 flights, it needed tweeked every flight. It has almost 3 gallons of fuel ran thru it and it is getting worse. I figured I would just break down and get a Frank Bowman ring rebuild the carb. I took it apart and found a problem with the reeds. The reed cage doesn't fit right in the isolator block. There seems to be some kind of hard rubber in the isolator block where the reed cage goes in. If I push the reed cage into the block, two of the reeds will lift up about .005 ". Will the reed assembly from the DLE 55 work? Also, if the reeds aren't fully seated will this cause the problems I'm having? I might just get a reed assembly and ring for the darn thing. If these don't fix it, I'll just put another engine on it that also starts with a D.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

The reed blocks are supposed to be the same

dogshome

Mine had the same problem. Very hard to start in my case. I stripped it down before getting much further to find out if it would run reliably as it was.

I trimmed the plastic block (the ridge) and the engine has been perfect ever since. Best engine I have!


I posted on here somewhere about it....

dogshome

Found it

http://www.flyinggiants.com/forums/s...&postcount=137

f l y i n g g i a n t s . c o m

a1pcfixer

My Feedback: (7)

This works better....
http://tinyurl.com/3e6eyky

dogshome

Thanks! [8D]

madman75

I went ahead and ordered a piston ring from Frank Bowman and also a new isolator block and reed assembly from Tower. For kicks, I got some glass and lapping compound to check the reed cage faces. Boy were they really uneven. Low spots and also not flush across. I had to use 320 grit compund to true it up and then 500 grit with a polish at 1200 grit. The reed cage faces look like a mirror. It looks like the reed cage faces were put on a belt sander. There's no way the didn't leak. I'm curious how the new reed cage will look loke when I get it. Maybe DLE has taken a little more care and time on the newer reed cages.
Anyway the reeds fit flatter and tighter so I may end up using the old ones. I will check the new one to see if it is true and flat.

dogshome

Apart from the plastic/rubber lip being too high, the seal on my (DL50) was good. The finish was a semi-matt; definitely not horrible belt sanded stylee [:-]