Today I continued to put things
together. I installed the upholstery and
carpets in the cockpit. I installed the
seats and put the cowlings in place.
Glenn and Loretta Olsen came by for a look. They said they liked what they saw. I asked Glenn if he thought I could or should
do the first flight. He said absolutely,
so I guess I will fly it for the first time next week end.
I
worked on the gascolator once again. I
could not remove a screw yesterday because of a bolt coming through the
firewall just below one of the gascolator bowl retaining screws. I tried
bending a hacksaw blade to get to the bolt without much luck. I tired cutting down the width of a hacksaw
blade so I get it to go through one of the holes in the nose strut
brackets. No luck there either. After sitting on my work stool and looking at
the problem I decided if I removed the clamp holding the radiator hose to the nose
strut I could get a Dremmel tool with a cutting blade in there and remove the
end of the bolt. Accordingly I did just
that. I brought over my fire
extinguisher just in case. It took just
seconds to cut off the end of the bolt with the Dremmel tool. I removed the screws holding the gascolator
bowl retainer and removed it. My next
problem was how to remove the gascolator bowl.
I recalled a post by Tony Testitorie on a gascoltor bowl removal
tool. It consisted of a pipe, a tee and
2-nipples. I went to Lowe’s to see if I
could come up with the parts to make a similar tool. All I could find were some small brass
fittings and nipples. I purchased the
parts I needed and made a gascolator bowl removal
tool. I really works wells. I was able to remove and reinstall the bowl
with little effort. There was no debris in the bowl and just a few
fibers on the screen. I put it all back
together and we are good to go.
