Stinson L-1 - Engine Start Saga - Part 2

okay here we are back again with the Stinson L won the last time if you remember the left mag was dead when we tried to run it and we thought about a little bit and I'm gonna let me tell you what we've done to try for the next round well what we've done this engine runs what they call a duplex Magneto it doesn't have to separate Magneto's one for the front set of spark plugs ones on the back it runs one single magneto two separate coils which feed into two distributors as Kermit said the the left mag had no ignition on it it was dead what we were what we had to prove at that point whether it was the left hand distributor that wasn't working another left hand magneto wasn't working the left hand magneto fires the rear set of plugs so what we've done we've fed the high-tension output from the right hand magneto into the left distributor and the output from the leftist magneto into the right distributor to see if the fault on the engine swap sides if the fault swap sides we'll know whether it's either the Megillah distributor that's where we're at now so we'll do another engine run and see what happens let's go check [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] do tell sighs no it's still the left man it's still the left mag so if it's still the left mag the left mag is feeding it or the right side so it's the left distributor okay explain to me something when you were explaining that you said that the there's there's one mag with two distributors but there is but within the mag there's one that within it there's a left and a right yes there's too close it's basically there's one armature two sets of coils and the output from the left coffees the left side which is the rear plugs the output from the right side feeds the front plugs what we've done is swap them over so it's the same match and it's still dead on the same side then it has two distributors killing it because haven't moved right okay so now the left has two short quick and concise easy okay round four coming up each Magneto runs through its own distributor so we have knowing that the engine actually runs and assuming that the magneto hasn't about the problem in itself which it could have done we've basically been mixing and matching to see what happens now we know from the first run at the right hand magneto great dead tent right hand magneto through the right hand distributor works the engine that ran out to be fine right the left hand magneto so the left hand distributed didn't work at all right so what we then did was crossed the right hand Magneto to the left hand distributor the left hand magneto to the right hand distributor this is going to get very messy very quickly that made absolutely no difference the right hand mag ran through the left hand distributor so this is good the left hand mag did not run this is all good so that's this became the problem now what we haven't what we need to ascertain that we know the right hand distributor is good because it runs through the right hand mag connected the left hand mag it doesn't run therefore the problem is somewhere between here and we know this is good and this point if you will it's possible that the magneto itself has developed a problem and I believe that Wayne has just been through and checked the points and pulled you know pulled the dollar bills wrote the traditional you know old-fashioned mechanics method and either basically clean them yeah when we clean the concept braking points it's the only D is a 10 or dollar works just fine yeah a dollar was just fine you know don't waste your money on that points for complete wasted a dollar bills the way to go the most likely thing now was that lead between the left hand magnet left hand distributor which I believe has been checked everything's been cleaned at this point we do another run so we certainly was this out and there's a cure that's my understanding yes yeah I haven't actually been that close to it the last couple of weeks because I've been working on the Curtiss ox5 engine for the journey so you know I'm kind of picking it up for scratch now and we'll see what it does if this has made no difference then the magneto becomes suspect which is unfortunate but there we are so anyway we'll say these like it's got a lot right you haven't mowed it feels nice [Music] [Applause] [Music] so itself there isn't anything else left out we've kind of really alright I guess the mic thumbs up again now to you Meg but is there a way to test it or you got to have a stand to test it there has to be twelve theoretically has to be tested an X number of RPM under a bright light I mean I can spin it by hand and see if we get spark out of it that's the next thing god we cannot win for losing Kelly welcome to the world wonderful world of vintage airplanes the last time we took the Stinson l1 out we've been having problems after the engine rebuild to connect the sorry replaced event connecting rod we could finish the run at all on the left Magneto you never really look for the most obvious things first kind of tend to start with the simplest things it's human nature to do that Weimer investigated the continuity between the distributor's we'd we'd swap the right back to the left distributor the left bank for the right distributor that didn't really change anything we checked the thieves into the distributors from the Magneto's respectively that didn't make any difference so in desperation for want of a better word we decided to pull off the left magneto which by my reckoning had actually already been rebuilt apparently I wasn't entirely correct in that and Paul maybe could take up the story with that one although I do fit it to the engine it was given to me witnessed the shiny new pane as a rebuilt one we were doing the work on the engine when Andy finished the engine of course we had to have all the acessories overhauled carburetor fuel pump and all the different things that attach to the back of the engine I was going to send the mag out for overhaul but then I found this mag sitting on the shelf that was yellow tag that they actually come with spare parts inventory that came at the stinson tribal order that the current bought a number of years ago so I thought to myself you know that's a good Maggie oh that's gonna save us some time I was most thing also some money of course it takes a long time you said I'm a guy throw it off to get it back because there's very few people that do this savage max is the only one and this who sent this out is probably gonna or any mag out it takes ya months really to get is that soft that speed wise so I took that magnet around the engine then an old firm is the airplane flew great with a good high it did fine this where we are now only really this problem and he really arose after we've done the mechanical repair with the with the connecting rod replacement against the way you know trying to trying to avoid the issue but it wouldn't be the place that you would start you would be you would think it would be something that you dismantled in doing the connecting job repair and put back on the airplane perhaps incorrectly or not as it was something had become disturbed and created a secondary problem when we as going back to we pulled the magneto off in desperation to check it and we can do a little demonstration to show you what we found so what we've done here this is the this is our suspect Magneto the one we've just taken off the airplane I can tell you a little bit about it because it's unusual normally you would have on any aviation engine you would have you have two Magneto's two completely separate Magneto's on a on a radial engine one fires the front plugs one fires the rear plugs on a flat engine one fires a top plugged one five lower plugs on an inline engine one will fire one side of the airplane one one will fly the other the exhausted me and let's start the plugs if you like the Stinson or the should say they are 680 lycoming engine has what they call a duplex magneto which is essentially one magneto with two coils I II can only assume this is an economy it's not well-loved in the industry I have to say it's it's possibly justified the business it's not it's not people's favorites it's hard to set up there's always the the issue that if the if the the central part of the magneto fails you lose absolutely everything the point of dual ignition on having running to magnet is you've gotta back up the ng what runs nicely on one mag is but it certainly will run at which point you can go home and you know have T if this magneto fails you do actually lose everything having said that I've never been around one that failed so you know I guess it's done okay the last 50 or 60 years anyway so we have single Magneto's as the want me to roof in the airplane nice and shiny has dual outputs this is the left-hand side this is the right-hand side well we're doing a very simple test here we're going to run the magneto with a with an air drill we can control its speed these mags don't really start to give a good spot until they're running a you know a couple of hundred rpm I can't remember the exact number but certainly for the comparison test I think it'll do fine so Paul's gonna Paul's gonna see if he can get lit up so what we're gonna do this is the one reroute from the airplane get this one and we'll just spin it up and hopefully if you can focus it where the is maybe before they to open it worth worth noting that when an engine is actually is running the compression and the combustion tend to want to blow the spark out so a weak spot here could well actually be no spot at all at the plug this is a magneto that we thought out of our storage one of our storage bays untested plants tested now no no guarantee certainly not been rebuilt now we fire this one now until I sustained get back to the other one just for fun go back to our suspect man now we do a direct comparison [Applause] different we all the way yeah for the weight nothing either my personal feeling is that whilst that left side of the mag is running I do not think that would run the engine with the compression and pressure inside the engine if you will I think it would just buff that spark out the reason I was saying that on camera is that we send the mag out and it still does a rail it comes back then I won't have quite so much egg on my face but my guess is that something is gone or is failing inside this magneto and that will ultimately cure our problem [Music] [Laughter] we found out after a little bit of research that the mag we had put on there was had been yella tagged we pulled it off the shelf but unfortunately we never had to test it so we're thinking that might have been the case we've since had it overhauled and we'll see what happens since the all these attempts that we did last year trying to get the airplane running I've lost a few aircraft department and lo and behold a Jack McCoy who actually used used to be my original AI has come back he's going to help us a little bit he went ahead and installed the mag and Jack come on here let me introduce it so this is Jack McCoy as I said Jack was my original AI when Fantasy of Flight open and great to have you coming back and helping and let's see how it goes let's go what to tell them a little bit about what you did well we put the new mag on and it's an overhauled mag in it it looks a lot better than the one that came off and did a few little changes here and there on it but otherwise it's it's it's in really good shape I think it's going to go fine started at the good side all pressure wait for the hope death Barbie's fix itself but the farmers make it Wow [Applause] that's finally good news started right up good next master fuel alright yeah man it started a lot of oiling tonight's exhaust yeah it's it actually got really bad there for a second but then so yeah a bit burned out it's just been a lot laying in there good job okay good deal well you know other than a little bit of a leaky primer here yeah which just haven't had few minutes of the CA - well but anyway say check it over button it up and yep they do a carny cam one day what do you think [Music] you you [Music] you

Channel: Kermit Weeks

Views: 37,893

Rating: 4.9844284 out of 5

Keywords: Kermit Weeks, Fantasy of Flight, Stinson L-1, Paul Stecewycz, Aircraft Restoration, Andy Salter, Vintage Aircraft

Id: U8yYh7wQ6Y0

Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 06 2019