I came up to the airport today to tackle the list of to-do’s on my plate.

The big thing was getting stuff put back on the plane!  Kevin (the pres of the DFC had cut open the oil filter for me) which revealed absolutely no filings inside.  He had installed the new filter (safety wired it for me too).  The plugs had been cleaned, so armed with a bottle of anti-sieze and a torque wrench, I got those installed straight away.

After those were in, I tackled the pitot-static system.  Before arriving at the airport, I popped into Duncan Hydraulic and got various fittings to hook up the front cockpit instruments, and properly hook up the rear ones as well 🙂  It took some time, and one return trip to swap out two fittings, but I’m very happy to have accomplished this.  The front cockpit is really starting to come together.

Next was the alternator.  I took the existing one to the local alternator rebuild folks on the suggestion of another DFC member.  He felt the bearings inside were dragging, and it seemed like a good suggestion to me.  Bringing it back to the airport a couple of hours later, got my stymied a bit as I was having difficulty remembering how it all went together 🙁  I’ll wait for final installation when there’s someone around who knows a bit more about these…

One nice quick job was topping up the tires with air, then re-installing the hub covers.  It’s nice to be putting parts back on the plane 🙂

The biggest job for the day was getting the propeller taken care of.  The consensus was to paint the polished prop to limit future oxidization.  I liked the polished look, but I have to admit that I don’t want to spend all my time polishing it to keep it healthy.  This was completely foreign territory for me, but I got guidance from Kevin, and the steps seemed logical etc…

• Sand the existing flat black paint to remove any flakes
• Use Phosphoric Acid to remove any existing oxidization
• Use Gold Alodyne to help prevent any future oxidization
• Clean thoroughly
• Prime the propeller
• Paint the colour coats (went with light grey)
• Mask off and paint the flat black on the back

Everything has been done except for the final step which I’ll take care of when I’m back up.