RE: Lanier Mariner 40 MKII ARF 62"
Progress to this point is:
1. Installed rudder/elevator servos and pushrods. Set the elevator to 3/4" travel and rudder to 1 1/2" per booklet. Sealed around the pushrod tubes with GE silicone. Also, put a coating of OMC waterproof bearing grease on the pushrods before installing them into the tubes. This to keep water out. (I had a trainer with floats a couple years back. Spray from the floats would get on the exposed pushrods, then run down them inside the fuse when the nose was down and drip right into the servos.) The grease adds a little drag, but short of building waterproof boxes and using bellows seals on the pushrods, this is the best way to keep water out. I did the waterproof box/bellows routine on my 4* floatplane, and that procedure was a PITA. Also ironed down all the covering seams I could find on the bottom and sides of the hull. After ironing, went along each seam with a some TopFlite trim solvent on a q tip. Did this around each of the black trim stripes, fore and aft, as the coverers used those to hide the seams where the orange and white join.
2. I've studied a lot on the cowl/engine mounting/fuel system/throttle linkage arrangement in the engine pod. A few things I've noted:
My cowl is tighter at the aft end than the one shown in the booklet. The farthest it will slip on over the pod is about 1/4". This makes my spinner backplate distance about 5 and 1/4", compared to the called for 5". No problem, the further forward that engine is translates to less ballast in the bow.
I really don't want the engine hanging on that flexible plastic mount so far from the firewall. I anticipate lots of vibration if I do that. So, I'm using the OS aluminum mount for the 55 AX, and I'll have to make a 1 and 1/4" thick plywood shim, laminated from two pieces of 1/2" and a piece of 1/4". (I have a OS aluminum mount for a 15CVA in a Sig Wonder, and complete absence of vibration compared to other mounts is the first thing I noticed when I cranked it up the first time.)
An upright mounting for the engine is going to result in the carb spray bar being slightly above the top of the fuel tank. That, combined with the distance between the tank and the engine, is a guarantee of poor fuel feeding. I'm going to mount the engine sideways, so that the spray bar will align with the centerline of the tank, as per OS instructions.
The throttle linkage setup is all but impossible to modify for a sideways engine mount, so I'm going to stick a third servo in betwen the elevator and rudder servos, and run a flex cable up the back of the pylon, then through the bottom of the pod and from there forward through the bottom part of the firewall to line up with the throttle lever. The pylon already has a groove in the back of it that nicely accepts the cable housing. (I've clamped it in position so the routing may be seen.)