The Damage

The disassembly was straight forward. The only specialty tools needed were a couple 90 degree thin wall box end wrenches to access the cylinder nuts behind the pushrod tubes. The entire process took a day. The time could have been reduced had I not photographed everything I handled. I found two bad pistons and a .010 undersized crankshaft which measured at service limits on one crank pin. This was the immediately obvious damage but not the least of it I am sure. It would not be worth overhauling this engine with a crankshaft already at service limit. I began my search to locate a rare 8-bolt crank. Having eventually secured a core crank to machine, I packaged the rods, crankcases and camshaft and shipped to Nicksons Machine shop to perform the nessesary reconditioning and inspections.

The 1948 C170 airframe

This picture was taken on a pond where some sleds were racing. I spend a lot of time off the pavement with this plane. Hopefully my insurance company does not see this. I had solid axles installed and was going to put skis on but tires have worked well on hard packed snowmobile trails.

Overhauling my airplane engine

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