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So I finally got my new project home about 3 days ago. The first day was spent just moving the project home and getting things situated in my shop. This plane started life as a Tri Pacer and was converted to a taildragger in 1989 using the Blanton conversion plans. It had the Ford V6 installed and test run and then the project moved through several hands and never really got worked on. The fuselage has been stretched 24 inches, the wings extended 18 inches each with the Ailerons pushed out to the tips and the flaps extended to 87 inches. It has hornier tips. I removed the Ford engine the first day to prepare to offer it up for sale. Yesterday I spent the evening taking all the electrical system out and nicely labeling everything. I took the firewall off leaving everything intact to go along with the motor. Today the airframe was stripped of the old fabric and I am very pleased with the tubing that was underneath! Saturday will be going through the airframe and planning structural changes for the near gear which will be a PA-18 style but wider up top and extended 3 inches. I am very excited about this build!
Wish list is as follows...
- Extended PA 18 style gear.
- 60 inch skylight
- Extended rear windows.
- Catto Prop
- Second smaller baggage door above the stock one for the top baggage area.
- Second light set up in the right wing with LED lighting.
- ACS billet yokes.
- Gullwing patroller doors on both sides.
- Squared off PA-18 sized tail.
I have more pics of it on my home computer. My friends swears by this motor and thought I was nuts for taking it off. It has 1.4 hours test time on it. Has a cool electronic Holley carb with adjustable mixture. I have a ton of paper work for this thing. I am going to try and sell it as a complete FWF. Engine, Gear Drive, Mount, Radiator, Cowling and Prop.
Knew a fellow that had one 20 years ago, only problem he had initially was cooling.
I guess water cooling can get a little complicated with pressure reliefs and such.
I have been working on something similar for the last 11 years. I started with wagabond plans and extended the tail 21 1/2 inches for better ground handling and designed my own tandem seating. I have all the Blanton plans etc here and are familiar with them.
Has the plane ever been licensed? If it was you are probably OK. The reason I ask, is that conversions like that were done back in the late 80's and early 90's but since then the FAA has clamped down on that kind of conversion and it may cause you difficulties.
If my mind serves me, the Javelin company (Blanton) that made the belt drive for the ford had some quality control difficulties and there were several lawsuits before they folded. They don't have a very good reputation in the homebuilt arena. I have no idea what one would be worth.
Long 100 plus hour work week at my actual job so I did not get much done on the project. Today I carefully removed the floor and toe brake set up. All of the electrical wiring that was left came out also. Tomorrow we determine the course of action for reinforcing the fuselage for the PA 18 gear. I am also looking closely at the tailwheel attachment to determine if we want to beef it up and rework it at all. I am anxious to get the fuselage tubing done so we can start the real fun of building it. The owner before me primed and painted everything with all the pulleys in place. While they are in excellent shape struts ally it looks terrible. Some of the those pulleys are pretty pricey! I am pulling all the cables out to make new ones and will decide how to clean up the pulleys without hurting the phenolic. I will snap some pics tomorrow!
Finally back on the build some. Helped out with several annuals over the past couple of weeks which lead to some engine work on one and lots of time invested. I had my friend stop by yesterday and take a look at the structural changes needed for the lower fuselage for the PA-18 gear conversion. Has anyone thought of using a 1 1/8 .058 tubing to sleeve the forward cross member from the outside? I easily made a poster board template of the tubes in the cluster and we thought we could run the 1 1/8 tubing through the computerized band saw lengthways. I can then transfer my template to the tubing halves so that I can then sandwich the old tube. It is something that we are considering. I will be making my new gear attachment brackets out of 1.75 square tubing. Not sure what suspension I will be running yet... Keep leaning toward AOSS or the suspension from Super-12.com. Another thing that I am doing this week is starting to mock up the larger rear side windows. I am trying to decide if I can source the window retention channel or just bend some up.