My main winter project (a 1/4 Scale Chipmunk) has been held up for the past 5 weeks waiting on a speical order part (the LHS has told me it will come in this week!).

This little break has allowed me to get some other work done. Over the past couple of years I have obtained several motors that were old and not in good shape, in fact one friend gave me two .25 size motors (one OS and one Magnum) to use for Static Display and another OS. 30 was given to me by the widow of a club member, I also purchased a 12 year old Magnum .45 as part of a whole package of stuff purchased from a guy getting out of the hobby. In every case the motor was a throw in with a bunch of other stuff.

Well my break has given me time to work on these motor. The Magnum 45 looked to be in the best shape, it was mounted in a trainer and appeared to have been run in the last 5 years. After a bit of work and tuning I got that motor running like new - one down.

The three smaller motors presented more of a problem. Two were virtually seased up, rotating the prop was difficult at best, the OS .30 looked the best, but it too was difficult to turn, and there were missing parts.

I took the mufflers off each motor, and dropped a few drops of air tool oil into it, then slowly tried to turn the prop. To my surprise, after a bit of work, the props started to move easily and the engines had good compression. After getting the engines to turn, I took to cleaning them up a bit. Working with WD-40 and a toothbrush, I cleaned up the three motors, and then mounted two of the three.

Yesterday I set the OS 30 on my test bench, reset the mixture to factory settings, and tried to start it. The motor literally started on the first turn, no problems at all. A bit of tuning and that little .30 was tunning as good as you could believe. The Magnum .25 was the one in the worst shape, very rusted up, by after the cleaning and care, it was looking OK, and I figured I would give it a shot. First turn again the motor jumped to life, it needed more tuning that the OS, but I ended up running a full tank of gas through it with out many problems once it was dialed in.

I am not getting the little OS 25 ready - I would have already run it, but I am missing a small part I need to pick up this week. Given it was the motor in the best shape of the three I am not expecting any problems getting it going.

So today I have the following collection of running motors:

OS .91 4 Stroke (New in Box) - no plane for it yet, but I have a Norseman on floats I am building that it would fit well into
OS .61 AS - No plane for it either, but I am thinking a 4* 60 will be my next project and that will go into it.
OS .46 FX - Sitting in my trainer right now - might be moved to a .40 Corsair if I get the guts to try to fly it.
OS .30 Max - No plane, but I might use it for a .40 size Cub (It should fly pretty scale with that motor)
OS .25 Max - No Plane this is the only one I have not yet tried to run.
OS .25 LA - Sitting in a nice little SIG MK II trainer - I think my son will fly this plane.
Magnum .45 - Sitting in another trainer that I purchased from a guy - this is my backup plane for the season
Magnum .25 - No plane, just got this one running, it is still attached to my test bench.

I think I will be getting my special part next week, so I will be back to building, but I have got a ton of experience with motors over the past couple of weeks and feel much better about my mechanical skills!

I am sorry about your little problem here. Uhm you do know if you have a running engine (motors are electric) you have to get a plane for it. Tell your wife to read this message if she does not believe you. It's just the rules of the game... nothing we can do about it

Manks- I don't know how experienced you are in this hobby, but as a newbie myself I just want to say ENJOY your engine-fixing nitch. I get the impression there are all sorts of us who love the hobby but we all have different obsessions on certain aspects of it: Some are all about flying skill, some about hovering, some love building, etc. I've seen some crusty great flyers with disgusting-LOOKING planes which appall me, because I'm a covering, appearance, aesthetic guy. Yet my flying skills are nill compared to them. If restoring engines is your thing, then go for it man, and enjoy. My thing is I buy unwanted old trainers and restore and recover them and make them pretty again.

But one thing I have noticed is how well and easily some old broken-in engines start and run. I'm working on an old trainer now with a Magnum 46 and can't wait to get it done and covered just so I can start the engine and see how it runs. Half (or more) the fun is the stuff you do at home when you can't actually go out and fly.

My thing really has been building, I am moving into more scale planes now with the 1/4 scale Chipmunk project about 90% build (covering is another matter). I have learned how to fiberglass and paint ect. The whole engine thing was fairly new to me, the good news is I have a bunch of engines that need airplanes, the bad news is I have 7 airplanes now and one wife, I believe an 8th airplane may upset the whole equasion

What about motorcycles? Motorcars? Hahahahaahahahahaaa ...