NetHeads, Joe Horton will be happy to hear that I spent much of the day doing maintenance on the plane, rather than flying it. He keeps ribbing me about that promise I made that I was going to spend as many hours improving the plane as I was flying it, and so far I'm behind in the improving department, and he keeps reminding me. Of course that decision was aided by high gusty winds and low ceilings! I fixed the exhaust leak, changed the oil, replaced the fuel pressure sending unit, and started thinking real seriously about adding 3.5" to the gear legs in the form of 4130 plates spacing the axles downward. And I goofed around with the EIS data pages to turn on some leaning stuff that I've been ignoring up until recently. Oh, and I also replaced the airport's rotating beacon's white light bulb today. I'm the only guy stupid enough to climb the rickety tower!
I also ordered a new 21 Ah PowerSonic battery, this time with the "high rate discharge" variety, which can put out more amps for the short duration that cranking the engine is going on (see http://power-sonic.com/site/doc/prod/141.pdf ). I bought it for $32.30 from the folks at http://www.batteryweb.com/powersonicdetail.cfm?Model=PSH-12180%20FR&tbl=PowerSonicSLA12v . It's only coming from Florida, so I should have it in time for my Thursday flight to a Thanksgiving family reunion in LA (Lower Alabama). My old 17 Ah battery is 3 years old, and since the weather's a lot colder now, it's probably down some in the capacity department and it spins the engine a little slower these days. Of course nother factor is probably that the Total Seal rings make it a LOT harder to turn over now. So I can swap it into my lawn mower or alarm system and still feel like I'm not throwing my money away. Or maybe I'll make it the new backup battery for the ignition and fuel systems and move my CG a little aft at the same time. Might as well have that lead working FOR me instead of AGAINST me. I did 12 touch and goes yesterday. Tomorrow will be windy too, so Tuesday looks like a go... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net --------------------------------------------------------------
