I Get A FREE Airplane.... If I Can Start It

I bought seven airplanes sight unseen off a Facebook Marketplace for a hundred thousand dollars and not they don't run they haven't ran in quite a while and we have five days to get them all going the plan is to sell six of them and be able to keep this one for free oh green is better I've never actually hand dropped this is freaking nerve-wracking this is why we keep Jesse around why this plane you ask it is a 1946 Piper Cub j3 a mere 77 years old and uh it is definitely 77 years old with the technology that matches this was the biggest production airplane in Piper's history over 20 000 of these airplanes were made and here's what's the crazy part is there's 5500 flying today this is like the model A of airplanes it doesn't get any more simple than this and this is the airplane that started the general aviation Revolution I think like 90 percent of the World War II Pilots got their start in this thing they went from this to the T6 to the Mustang or you know whatever Spitfire whatever they were flying at the time and it's still just super duper popular today about as simple as construction as you get really you have bars here and here and then there's a couple of other bars inside and then you just stretch blanket around it and you know glue it down and that's pretty much the entire airplane there's no alternator on it so you you know you can't start it with a starting motor key you just got to man up and throw the prop and try not to chop your arm off in the process there's no radios so you just you're flying 7600 the whole time for you non-aviation people out there 7600 is a code that you put on the little transponder thing in the airplane for I can't hear anybody radios are all not working it does not get more simple of an airplane than this thing at all I don't even think it has flaps nope no flaps either ironically you can do acrobatics in it limited acrobatics which that's kind of weird I don't understand that exactly but whatever so yes we have uh under the hood here you're looking at all 65 BTUs engine I mean this is a continental but it's basically a Volkswagen Bug engine 65 horsepower it's about the same as a Volkswagen Bug actually uh for suspension you literally have bungee cords under here I'm not making any of this up that's actually what's under there this one has the modification breaks of hydraulic brakes because the old ones that are like on this one right here and we'll get to this one soon but it's got a cable can you see this so the cable like on your bicycle that's exactly what that is that cable goes and then it puts just spreads the brakes out you have to steer with the brakes on it and it swings the tail around and that tail wheel back there just kind of goes where she wants to go the pilot whenever he's flying by himself has to sit in the back seat I know a little bit weird but he has to sit back here because if you set up there there'd be too much weight forward and the plane would want to fly like this and that that's not good so a pilot has to sit here and pretty much you're limited to one very skinny person up front the main Spar that holds all the wings together is like two by six it's not even a two by six it's a one by six come here and check this out that's made out of wood that makes me feel very secure so the gas Tank's right here next to your knees you know so again if anything happened uh they don't want you to suffer oh yeah and you've got very basic gauges you got oil pressure oil temp RPM uh your speedometer and your altitude well last time on the last videos you may have seen he did get it started and running and basically he got it running faster than what we could even get the camera over there to see but the one thing we didn't do was actually take a look inside the engine and around the engine to see if you know what the condition is and that kind of thing and that's what we're going to do today I'm going to find out if this airplane is definitely worth selling the other six airplanes to keep this one over all the rest of them if this was in perfect condition everything worked and you know engine was good all that kind of stuff it is worth about fifty thousand dollars just by itself now that is like a really super duper nice one uh so basically if it doesn't run just this engine right here is 20 grand 25 000 of its total value which is crazy to me so we got to figure out is this thing worth keeping over all the seven uh other ones so right away noticing tires got a little flat there there and there you know put in a couple bucks for tires we got the interior on this thing is pretty basic for models with him I mean it's functional it works the big thing about these is this is just a fabric it's a kind of a stretchy plastic type of stuff and uh this of course would age and everything like that the nice thing is this one has been here in the hangar its whole life so that's a bonus and the big number on this one this engine to the best of my knowledge with the log books it only has a couple hundred hours on it which in car terms they have this thing called TBO which is uh you know speak for you're supposed to replace it at that time after so long and let's just call it a hundred thousand miles is when you're supposed to rebuild replace the engine in a car it's kind of the same thing in Airplane world so this one has only like 20 000 miles on it so it's pretty low it has about 200 hours on this one right here so that's a very very good thing the propeller is also one of the more expensive bits on this and this one is actually kind of ridiculously in good shape it doesn't it needs to polish and a little bit of paint but that's super good right there because just this propeller is several thousand dollars on an airplane a certified airplane for sure we got some more fabric I'm looking for any uh damage any Cuts any place where the fabric is pulling up I'm also just checking it now there is actual special tools that check for the thickness and the condition of it and stuff like that but we're just we're gonna go with the calibrated eyeballs here I've had LASIK surgery so it makes it fine obviously going to need some lubrication on everything now this one is what's called a certified airplane they have to be inspected by an actual Certified mechanic of the highest level in the FAA which is called an inspection authorization and IA so if this one is worth it by our eyeballs which so far everything I've seen it is definitely we're gonna have to bring one of those people in to do the inspection on it to make sure that everything is legal it's all safe and airworthy and all this stuff is brought up to current standards so that it can be legal and safe to fly again we'll find that out here in just a second but it's looking pretty good so far and these little things these are inspection plates we'll be popping those off here in a little bit taking a look up inside there to make sure there's no rust or rot or anything like that going on inside there and what this is what I call the crunch test you do this on bonanzas too you go back through the tail and you go you squeeze it because they're made out of magnesium not aluminum or anything like that and you squeeze it and if they crunch like a bag of potato chips just go like this and walk that way because it ain't worth it foreign oh yeah and this one check this out so the front of this airplane pivots up and down for its trim how cool is that okay checking this checking all these making sure this is nice and tight that goes there checking this up and down that's tight there like a nice drum it is like a drum kit all that stuff is in there not no tears leg day other than just needing some WD-40 on stuff my remote control car has the same same things on it holy crap come here is that that is the exhaust can you imagine in trying to get this thing out of here look at where that pin is at and that's the exhaust you imagine trying to get that out of here if something was going on revealing look at that hey it's got slick mags those are recent too those look actually pretty good if this thing had an alternator on it we could throw an electronic mag on there now that we got the engine cowling off I noticed something very good you see that orange color right there that is a good sign for airplanes that sit for a long time because orange means chromed cylinders which chrome doesn't rust or pit very easily now they have different colors they have black orange blue I'm sure I think there's a green one or something it's all throughout the different ages they did different things to the cylinders that would help them but Orange through the long and short of it is the best one you can find for an airplane that sits a while because it's likely that it's not rusted leaks looks fairly dry I mean it's a little bit you know we got some Chevy what I call Illinois anti-rust happening that's for self lubrication switch is good kind of like on a Harley Davidson the old ones had the exposed push rods kind of same deal 77 years old it looks pretty good for being 77. that's pretty much the tour because there's nothing else to the airplane there's no alternators there's no avionics there's no anything well we can make sure the throttles move lock to lock um there's not even a mixture it just has like a gas pedal and that's it and the mag switch on and off that's all you got yeah so here we'll we'll just do a quick it's on the idle stop right now and we'll just go wide open and see all right going open nice and smooth yeah to the stop yeah and it was smooth up here Jesse what do you what do you think of this um it's extremely simple you don't have an oil filter you have an oil screen you don't have a vacuum pump you don't have a starter you don't have an alternator it's meant to do one thing work it's got a nice set of slick mags on both sides it's super simple I mean even even all the way down to the flight controls it's super simple you know there's not a ton of stuff that could go wrong condition Wise from what you've seen so far you've helped poke around a little bit right are we thumbs up or thumbs down with the way that everything's looking just just first view of course you know I haven't really gotten a chance to dig into it so far it's a thumbs up and we'll see if it's going to be two thumbs up you know it might be it might not be what I want to do is get it started again it was running pretty fun last time before the Ia gets here or maybe have them come over here since we tried once but it wouldn't start on a different airplane so I've never done this before so I don't want to cut my hand or kill myself so let's wait and find out somebody went but if they weren't here I would totally give it a shot anyway just throw them out there I think it's time to bring in the Ia to go ahead spend the money get this thing all the way back up to where it's legal to fly now biggie pleasure so here's a little side note about hers her and your dad is that right new uh Jerry who was the the guy that passed away that these were all his airplanes they've been taking care of these airplanes for years and years and years so she knows these airplanes better than anyone on the planet except for Jerry who passed away so we got her back out here she was so gracious to come out and give them one final look over and go before they ride on out of here and she said she was going to help us hand prop this thing to get it started and show us how it's supposed to be done okay first you make sure that you are feels on and you've primed everything up okay usually about four shots maybe a shot on the the primer up here the primer that's right up here and then on throttle do a couple of swipes with it and then put it in crack it okay yeah when you go to do these you always want to remember to pull and fall back okay because most people are gonna fall in you want to always when you pull it down fall back yeah you don't want to go into the propeller now I've also seen where they would do it from back here where you'd boom like that yes so sometimes it's best if you do it this way if you're strong enough not all of us are strong enough but if you're strong enough always have it to where you can go this so you can pull yourself back okay and then you make sure your mags are on both you can't seem to get the the coffee into the maker so but it's not doing that the way it's you think it's supposed to operate 77 year old airplanes so this this is why we keep Jesse around in his handy flashlight so you see this cable right here yeah that cable comes up and goes around and goes to that that turns the fuel on well that is not connected to that little arm right there that turns the fuel on so that's off and that's on where it's supposed to go now this little thing right here is the primer and now it works but you pull this out okay oh yeah that's right there okay now it's primed we just also realized which we saw this before but all the wind off of this is going to go that way and pretty much blow whatever is over there all over the place so it's it'll be fine and the great thing about this airplane is so light it just zip right around yeah you're good over here good back there I think we are gonna have to go forward come around watch that wing tip we might have to open that door up here and we can screw it in the hanger a little bit more good okay okay now officially I'm nervous again can I get a clear prop [Music] no all right he's a liar that's what he is I got a feeling [Music] I knew it would run hand job it does sound like a lawnmower or a Volkswagen we're gonna let it warm up a little bit more but whenever we check the oil and do all that stuff we know what it's going to do one down six to go I know she pulled it back I'm like that came back a lot further than I thought it was going to and you sure know if he took a thing in there shot his flashlight and this is not connected there you go normally it normally kicks off pretty easy so yeah four four blades Max uh there's something wrong that's about what it was I knew it would work I don't know why you guys were doubting what we're doing is checking the compression what's different with airplanes versus cars is Cars you usually plug the thing in crank it over a bunch of times and see how the PSI builds up and that tells you what kind of compression you got well in Airplane World we're doing more of a leak down check where you put it on there and it's a differential leak down so we have 80 psi going in and we're seeing how much it holds inside the cylinder more is better closer to 80 you can get is always better but this one will tell us if rings are issues if there's scratches if the cylinder the ring name I mean it'll tell you quite a few things and if we have any blow-by into the crank case as well so we're listening for where this air is going what does this thing so it's high something 70 something shoot 78 I'll take that all day long quick disconnect that thing before this had changed his mind nice that is a fantastic sign that means the cylinders are testing good all the Rings are working the seating and all the gaps and stuff like that and it's not blowing out into like a bad valve or something like that so it's sealing up great which is a good good sign one down three to go and each cylinder fun fact for this size you're probably talking about 1500 bucks that's neat Center well I just put your finger over the thing I like to feel pissed it oh all right and hear the air flowing out that's the Piston coming up with the valves closed you're sticking your finger in there yes it's sticking my freaking finger in any engine I don't care if you're going slow yeah I have trust issues I have all the fancy equipment you're supposed to be using but if you're out in the field okay yeah it was hardly anything on here so on that cylinder we have to do some further investigation all the air was blowing right out of the exhaust so there might be exhaust valve stuck open on it piece of carbon or something yeah and the click that you hear is the magnetos the impulse coupling whenever it snaps it creates that spark and it recharges the timing so that it Sparks whenever you're going and after it gets over what about 200 RPM I think is whenever it no longer the spring tension in there centrifugal force moves it away so it's not going click on click every time it's going after 200 RPM so there you go fun fact of the day looking at 1920 1930 technology yeah 77 year old airplane and this still going it's crazy I am [Music] 80 and 80. yeah yeah so weak yeah I can feel this one with pretty tight oh you can feel the pressure coming off of it and everything that's fine if you let go of this thing and if it was just that little bit off it would go bam and knock you out no uh let go of it and just goes boom that's a bad day and you don't know which way this thing's gonna go because it might be on just that little bit of the top of the center or just on the other side and that's why I'm holding both sides because it's either going to Rack me right in the mommy daddy button or it's going to come around and smack me right in the forehead no I mean I'm thick so we're not having any more kids and you know I guess the other way is about the same result really [Laughter] I mean a little bit right there but yeah you can hear just dumping out of that at 32 yeah so we have exhaust valve issues on what is this number three two and three what's your uh next step on this for checking them out checking them out will be more stupid okay there's the bottom spark plug and I can flip it right there she is yep all right there's got the exhaust ring take off on this side oh that's the exhaust valve over there right there I think that's the intake right there yeah this thing's just filled with jump so that's what that's what I just you just fly this thing a couple of techniques you can do one you can pull the cylinder off pull everything off clean it all do that two you can move it up you know get the stuff out of the way shove some rope down in there and then make the Piston come up and kind of smush against that and then there's another way where you can kind of do the same thing but use some valve lapping compound which is basically just aggressive toothpaste get it on there and that'll clean it up and take a drill and move around and kind of grind that stuff off and then there's Jimmy's World Way which is the way we're going to do it today uh it involves a hammer nice save good save all right now we need to rotate it around so it's closed oh and here you'll get a taste so this valve on the right is the intake valve has one valve closed the other one is getting ready to open this is the intake valve starting to open packing in air and fuel as the Piston goes down and it's going to be a top dead center when the prop gets back around to the bottom should be top dead center right there ish here sticky finger in there yep there's a piston right there yeah they're just a piece of chunk of something in there move everything or this goes down you might be able to get in there oh I was just gonna smack her on top of that thing yes basically you just hit it with a hammer you give it the old fawns and you go like that none at all none whatsoever I don't want to hit it too stinking hard but at the same time it does need some love hitting it with the hammer I'm trying to stake the valve which is to jar the valve enough to seat and get that chunk of carbon off of there that's holding it open got it oh I feel suction on my thumbnail green River [Music] um [Music] foreign that didn't make any difference um all right so we're having a problem with that valve seating cloak right so we've staked it a few times you watched Jimmy with a hammer um Vicky's shaking her head I really do a whole lot so the thought process is is we're gonna throw any PSI of pressure inside of here right and whenever we you know Jimmy's going to be holding the prop we're going to throw 80 psi in and while we're also throwing air in there we're gonna go ahead and stake the valve bit because then you're also going to have EDP you know 80 pounds of hair that's pushing back on that valve to potentially give it a little bit of umph to get it to close and while the valve is open 80 psi of air will be going through there to hopefully blow any junk that gets knocked loose down into the exhaust and get rid of that fill it again amazing [Music] well there's a chunk of something stuck in there in there yeah there's a whole ridge this ain't making any better all right I got that it's going to be another cylinder on there oh let me throw this kind of crazy idea out there what you're crazy [Music] button this girl up we pull it out there and we run the crap out of it and then bring it back in here it's not a bad idea because that is the that's the best way that that's gonna blow that stuff out the heat the RPM the everything and that's the whole problem with this is that it just hasn't been ran hard for real I mean it's sat here in idle so like I said we're gonna run it really hard and then let normal engine stuff clean all this out of here and that's gonna be fine because it's really what you know hammer normally a hammer does work but sometimes you just need to give the beans and let nature take its course I was gonna say the hammer wasn't big enough but a pretty good size it's a pretty good sized Hammer so yeah we got it outside we're gonna run it up I'm gonna see if I can get it moving fast enough to get the full RPM yet not fast enough to where I start flying with it kind of a yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be fine have you ever you know this is gonna be your carry too huh all right yeah let's see how you do all right over and under how many how many throws you think it's gonna be no no no no don't start taking bets now okay so let's get some seat belts [Music] sterilize the cockpit three position well there's a seat belter gonna need some washing holy crap fine oh lord of Mercy yep oh yes that might be one of and then breaks and then hold the sucker back in your chest the whole time to make sure that tail doesn't come up and buckle this up in case we do decide to go flying I don't fall out because you know all right the key [Music] all right so before you kick the background let me roll on it are you ready all right cracked uh mags are hot throttles crack put on the brake go ahead oh come on you gotta man up on it nicely done all right watch out I'm gonna taxi back and forth I was so nervous getting ready to taxi this airplane it was the first time I had been in it with it running and knowing that the brakes might not work at all and how well they worked and if it was steering and I couldn't see anything out of the front so I had to keep swerving from side to side in an S to see down the runway to make sure I didn't run into the bushes and then at the same time I'm trying to do that I have to get a taxiing fast enough for the engine RPM to go to the full red line but not so fast that the plane wants to fly which was a very difficult thing to do in an airplane like this that flies at such a low speed needless to say I aged about five years on this one Taxi kind of fun it is like a go-kart all right now back breaks the lawn I'm holding it in there hoping to get that engine nice and crispy hot that's what it needed is just to be ran really really hard to get that engine super duper hot so that all that sludge would burn out of there and we could then get a good cylinder reading without a good cylinder reading we cannot make this thing safe to fly and legal to fly which is going to cause all kinds of other issues we're gonna get this back in there very very carefully foreign [Music] [Music] not gonna lie my blood pressure is up just a little all right we'll hold it there [Music] we gotta do so it's nice and toasty warm we're gonna pull that plug out and see if that made any difference all right what are you guys bet did that make any difference I hope it did you have a feeling not yeah all right well hey slight feeling not being honest with you try to get them to loosen and seat that's it reading right there it's a bummer it's coming out of there it's way down there it was way down there and it's supposed to be supposed to be way up there way down there so let's tell the boys and girls what that means that didn't work it was fun there is another option but the problem with doing the other option is there's tools that we require that we don't have yep um but that's pulling the cylinder off right or is that just taking the valve and lapping the valve that's lapping the valve while it's still on there very very very carefully yeah um which not a lot of people tend to do um but I've seen it done before and I've seen it work many times for those people that are watching that are not mechanics that don't know the details of what we're mysteriously talking about basically we'll pull this cover off there's a little rocker in there that pushes the valve down a pin comes out of there the rocker comes off we then squeeze that spring to remove the spring off of there and then we put some you know grinding lapping Compound on the face of the valve and then we push it and then have a drill or some sort of something to move the valve back and forth to make the seat clean the seat up and then we put it all back together and then that's that's the issue but right now what we just saw which was we did not know it was coming out of the Breather down there which that tell the boys and girls what that is at the piston rings that's the Rings themselves not seating all the way into the cylinder now we have a few different reasons why that could be we could have one we could have a broken ring which we can do a borescope and see if we got scratching inside the cylinder to see that two we could just have a stuck ring because the airplane hasn't flown for a while which is not totally out of the question we could have the ring in gaps on the Pistons could have been opened up for whatever reason but that's kind of weird because it only has 200 hours on this thing they could have maybe a lined up you know because the Rings are supposed to be opposite of each other yeah they're in a line that air will pass through a lot easier so yeah the long and short of it is uh Chico need some work so we're hoping maybe just maybe this one will have done something better hey look jack stand Jimmy boom both of us we must we do we'll do something here okay we're not ignited yet we're just hooking up all right coconut all right now what we're hoping to see okay [Music] together 80 and 35 fantastic keep it on we almost had 40 you're back down to about 33. yay so two of the four cylinders hey Jesse why are you shoving a rope down into the cylinder what's that saying because I think I was idea this is um old school but yeah the older the better that's right valve lopping that's the stuff that will cause cancer in California valve laughing compound yeah basically the Rope goes in gets all bunched up smooshes between the piston and the valve holds it in place and then we can take the spring off of the valve and let it float I need a bigger rope and careful not to drop shims or anything else that might come out of there use zero shims thankfully we were able to dig through and find the tools we needed to make this repair happen this comes on here pushes on that and we got to take those two little things out of the middle there that's what's holding spring and all that stuff on take those out this thing is and then we'll be able to get to this valve and spin it grind it on there and hopefully seal that thing up so we don't have to take that cylinder off there which would be ideal make sure they don't eat off at me Springs here now that we have the spring off of the valve we can take our hand and move it back and forth and feel just how much Crunch and stuff and Gunk is on the face of that valve holding it open and causing all of our issues not the nicest thing in the world it is not the safest thing in the world but it is Jimmy's world yeah this is one of the most dangerous repairs we can do on the engine there is so much that can go wrong if we allow that piston to go too far down the valve could fall inside the engine and now we have to take it apart so every single step of this we have to be so so careful and it has to turn out just right straightforward what is in this jar on one side is a very coarse gritty compound that we have to put on the face of the valve inside the engine to then grind off all of that carbon I mean there is a little bit of Blackness on it but I think that's where it's leaking at right there but as far as the cut on it and then we have to clean that and put on a fine paste that will then polish off all the other things and without getting any of it down in the inside of this engine and destroying a twenty thousand dollar engine just a smidge scoop it with a zip tie yep you just throw you don't need a ton you know just need a little bit of this gritty I dare you to taste it it's all over dead that's right operation there you go the drill is helping to grind off all that old nasty black sludge that is causing all of our problems all right I'll go ahead and stop him on there okay the whole process took about an hour to do both steps now that we have it put back together and cleaned our fingers across that this is going to work yeah yep okay that is not a good sign that's already 10 times better than my left we are looking for any number over 60 and that will give us the green light to keep moving forward holding at 62. okay yeah 62. holding it 62 60 64 almost give me one second [Music] and that was the one with the ring moving through saying to yeah well boys look at him smugness there you go all right now before we put that away let's throw that rocker on there one of the clips that holds the valve in is now under extreme spring pressure and decided to come loose so we're gonna take a chance and hit it with a hammer to see if we can't knock it back in place what could possibly go wrong there we go well one down one to go and we had flush the cylinder out so all the oil and stuff was gone if we throw a little oil now that we knew that trick worked Jesse continues to work on the other cylinder that was giving us issues late into the night this is just the first day of these five days yep Sun up the sun down what do you think what do you think the final number is going to be 30 I think yeah 35. 72. all right what do you think Vicky opening 70s 60. I'm going what year is this thing a 46 so I'm gonna go 64. you know all right yeah that's right yeah all right here we go boys place your bet place your bets come on anything over 60. hmm coming back [Music] nope where's it coming out of the exhaust again [Music] at all and you know I almost have to wonder if it's a statement because it's got so so tight right there the possibility we'll pull that rocker off and then see yeah as long as I'm gonna do it for me since this rocker's office oh my God there's nothing in here hmm the end of day one and we are already behind schedule I thought the Cub was going to be the easiest airplane out of all seven airplanes and turns out it is fighting us every step of the way at the beginning of day two Jesse continues to work his magic trying everything to get that cylinder to come back to life while he's doing that if we have any hope of getting all seven airplanes started in only five days I have to move on to the next airplane can't get this intake valve to spin remember how we would pull the springs off oh there it goes here we got the bug in the bottom it took Jesse hours to get both of these valves running to where they were sealing correctly uh right at 50. got a little bit better and that shows uh 65. Hallelujah this engine is ready to go and is past the inspections that we needed it to pass awesome job Jesse and honestly this thing just needs to get flown yeah in reality it honestly does dude I need this I I remember in my life seen a 25 30 seconds dude I need this this is sweet a 25 30 seconds rent it's been used a lot too that's the best part about it I need me one of them 25 30 seconds wrenches all right this is good for now just when we thought we were done with the Cub it had one more gift to give hey Jimmy come here I found something can't be good what'd you find uh maybe an issue that's an issue once you once you take a gander up in there is that what I think it is oh that is a big old honking mud dauber wow it's all kind of on that cable look at that that's no bueno there may or may not be uh some more too good he's strange to me you know the plane's only set for a few years I don't understand why I have so many mud daughters a little one right there got that one right there there we go that one maybe little guy oh yeah yeah look in there oh yeah we get rid of those shoot this angle climb a lot better oh yeah get some useful load back all right ain't nothing we can't handle it'll be my first rodeo there we go we got it a few of my dampers are not going to be enough to stop Jimmy Jesse and Vicky from getting this airplane flying again over the next several days in between working on the other airplanes they were able to get it back in inspection and legal to fly however Jimmy doesn't have the license he needs to be able to fly this type of airplanes so that there's gonna have to be another story [Music]

Channel: Jimmys World

Views: 539,005

Keywords: abandoned airplane, will it start, will it run, will it fly, jimmys world, aviation, private jet, abandoned, free airplane, free abandoned airplane, free abandoned, will it run and drive, will it run and drive home, aviation weather, aviation news, abandoned places, abandoned airplanes arizona, aviation documentary

Id: ifAnPqWT-Fs

Length: 51min 28sec (3088 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2023