T-Bone55

I'm new at this, I recently acquired a collection of planes, my brother passed away suddenly in 2011, and I received his collection, I know nothing about these things. How can I get them running? I need knowledge badly, the throttle seems stuck on one that I'm working on at this time, Its an OS 40 LA with a 40D carb, I've sprayed PB blaster down the glow plug hole to free up the piston, it worked, now the carb has the stuck throttle problem, I've put some PB blaster down the intake throat to see if that will work again. Is there a book I can purchase to help me with the service of these planes,or a site on information, would like to get one in the air for his sake. They haven't run in quite a while. I have 4 more to get running, one doesn't have any skin, its a J-3 Piper with a 6 foot wingspan

skylark-flier

Hey T-bone!! I saw your post this morning but thought I'd let someone with more knowledge/authority take first shot - guess they're all waiting for the same thing. So, here goes:

First and foremost, you definitely have my condolences on the passing of your brother.

Now, it might help if we knew generally where you are - there's sure to be professional help a lot closer than I am. If you're in an area that has a local AMA club, or a hobby shop that's knowledgeable in planes & engines - that's where you should definitely go first.

Before anything, let me refer you to a website that contains nearly everything possible about the basics of models & engines: http://www.gettingairborne.com/
At the bottom of the page are several links - toward the center is "engines" - they actually use a OS .40LA as one of the examples. The website can teach you an awful lot about your engines, planes, the hobby in general. The page on engines goes through everything - start to finish on the engines and how they work, what you need, all the details. Even has video links toward the bottom, of them starting the engines.

In the meantime, here's just a bit of the basics for those engines. Let me say that I've presently got 3 OS 40-LA's operational on planes - so I know the engine fairly well. It's a good engine, but not a great one. They'll definitely run again - no doubt. First job is to free them up - you know how stiff/stuck they are already. The reason something goes stiff on a glow engine is they've "varnished up" - fuel residue has dried out inside and become like varnish. There are a dozen ways to free them - let me start with some of the simple/easy ones. A couple drops of Marvel Mystery oil down the intake and then gently working the throttle back and forth should free it fairly quickly. If that doesn't work within just a couple minutes, try heating the intake A LITTLE BIT (nothing much more than a candle flame for a few seconds) with the oil in it. That, for my most stubbornly jammed engines, has nearly always worked.

I'm not going to go into starting your engine - the website does it WAYYYYYYYYY better than I could. Here's the BASIC basics: your engine is what we call a 2-stroke "glow" engine - on top of the head is a glow-plug, very similar to what a diesel engine uses for initial starting, and that's precisely the purpose of the glow-plug on your engine too. To energize the plug takes no more than a 1.5 volt battery - one contact to the top center of the plug, the other contact anywhere else on the engine. The fuel that your engine uses is a mixture of castor oil (pure or synthetic), alcohol and nitromethane - that's it, quite simple really. The oil lubes the engine (also gums it up when they're not run for awhile - you know all about that), the alcohol is the true "fuel" and the nitromethane (called just "nitro") is like an octane booster. The OS line - most all of them - run very well on 5-10% nitro fuel.

For initial starting of your .40, you'll need a propeller - a 10x6 is probably best for most purposes. That's a prop that's 10" long and the blade is pitched 6-inches. That means, in a perfect world (which is nowhere I've ever been) your propeller would move forward 6" for each revolution. Doesn't happen in real life though - thankfully. These engines, when full out, turn in the neighborhood of 8,000-11,000 rpm - your speed would be nothing short of phenomenal. In real life though, that 10x6 prop is going to give the average plane a speed in the 45-60 mph neighborhood.

The rest of everything is on that website.

As far as the planes go - once again, listen to the website. That J-3, while a beautiful plane, is no aircraft for a novice. A basic trainer is what you need for learning to fly - a SIG Kadet (any one of the series is good - there are presently at least 6 versions available) is probably the best trainer ever designed. I, myself, have a brand new Kadet Mk-II (just retired my original Mk-I from 1973) in the air - couldn't be happier with it. Your .40LA's will power the Mk-II quite well - it's what powers my own (see my pages, starting at http://www.wanderings-ds.com/whs/52-kadet-build-01.html to see how they go together).

My new Kadet Mk-II - - - that the OS .40LA powering her.

Hey, good luck with your little project. Feel free to contact me - and hopefully others will jump in here too.

AMA 74894

My Feedback: (1)

you've certainly found the right place, T-bone
first and foremost, my sincere condolences on the passing of your Brother.
Besides the Site that skylark flyer pointed out, (which co-incidentally was started by RC Ken here at RCU and my late Brother, Minnflyer)
there is a plethora of information here at RCU.
one thing I'd like to point out to make finding info a little easier, the forums here are separated into specific groups
foe example, if you've got a question specific to gasoline or glow engines:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/glow...rt-forums-463/
airplanes in general:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-airplanes-226/

you'll see each forum is broken down into sub forums.

feel free to read, and ask away!