Pedal at last.

First off I've been trying to link to the latest flight of the Shark 560. I'll try again here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z2V-KrZdGc
 Now back to the pedal. I got the new booster/master cylinder installed and the free play of the brake pedal set. Then it was off to bleed the master cylinder. I made the mistake of reading the directions and had to go get a part off the old unit first. Then I installed the plugs like it said and bench bled the cylinder. Didn't work. I'm used to putting tubes on the outlets and piping them back into the reservoirs then pumping the plunger. Anyway I kept getting the same bubble of air through the intake hole with the plugs installed and through the pipe with the tubes installed. A leak. I removed the plugs and applied some kind of sealer to the threads and everything worked. I installed the master cylinder and hooked up the lines and ran some fluid through the front caliper and then tried the pedal and it's working. I should bleed the brakes next.

Third time is the charm, I hope.

The brakes on the El Camino have concerned me for a while. I changed one master cylinder because it was leaking. I changed that one because it had a vacuum leak through a hole that wasn't supposed to have vacuum. Then that cylinder failed suddenly in early November. The next one wouldn't give enough pedal to suit me. I looked up everything I could find on the master cylinder and found that I had a part with a 1 inch bore and the one I needed has a 1 and 1/8 inch bore. That one is for the front disc brake car. The only problem is that the push rod from the pedal through the booster on the car is long requiring a deep hold in the master cylinder. The right cylinder has a shallow hole and would never fit on the booster in the car. After finding out about the large diameter bore I figured the only way to remedy this is to get a booster/master cylinder unit. I found on on line and went to NAPA and ordered it. Big core charge so I removed the old unit and traded it in. 4 nuts to remove 1/8 turn at a time. The brake lines route behind the booster and are screwed to the booster mounting bracket near the nuts. The studs prevented me from removing that screw until the  nuts were backed off most of the way. The factory must have installed the unit before the fenders were installed. Anyway I got the new unit and will attempt to install it maybe tomorrow. I managed to get the master cylinder bench bled properly, I think. My grandmother would have been proud of me as I invented a few cuss words she didn't. She used all of hers on me so I know them all by heart.

It's still winter.

 I figured out a way to warm up the basement so I can paint. I bought a dryer heat diverter from Ace hardware. I plugs into the vent hose and has a flapper valve to direct the exhaust outside or let it go inside. It works fairly well. Hopefully I won't forget to re set the valve to outside when I'm done using it.
  I priced flex hose for the hot rod exhaust. The glass packs don't make that much noise so I'm going to try straight pipes. That will have to wait until the temp gets above freezing.
 I barely got a design for the Shark 560 and still nothing for the Gypsy. Now the electric car is skinned and will need some paint. The wheels and drive stuff is on order and if it comes in we will have everything needed to run the car, except the batteries.

New mufflers.

  The  Magnaflow glass pack mufflers came in the other day from Jeg's. The temp was high enough so I finished installing them on the hot rod. I expected more noise with the engine running but it's still fairly quiet. After a fashion the noise should increase. It's still better than the original mufflers.
 I started to cover the Shark 560 today. I switched the landing gear from side to side and bent a nose gear wire. The plane should be able to use taildragger or nose wheel just by moving the mains around. The design kinda reminds me of the Primary Force set up but it should be better with the larger stab/elev and wing. I figure total weight in the low 40 ounce range. It weighs 37.7 now bare. I'm still trying to figure the colors on the Gypsy.

Good weather.

I have about 40 flights on the P-40 and it's doing better. I've been adding more elevator and wider spacing at the handle and the plane likes it. The turn is manageable and the plane is stable in level flight. Still the elevator only moves 20 degrees up and 20 down.
 I'm tempted to remove the mufflers on the hot rod and go with straight pipes. I think the quiet is turning off potential buyers. A pair of two chamber flowmasters are in my thoughts also. It wasn't easy finding ones with 2 inch in and out.
 I mixed up 5 gallons of fuel this morning. I had bought a quart of synthetic Klotz and removed a quart of castor and added the Klotz. The gallon of store bought/raffle won fuel has some synthetic also. 3 gallons of methanol 1 gallon minus 16 ounces of castor and 1 gallon of store bought 10% nitro fuel. I have about a quart of the last batch left.

It is winter.

The 63.5 foot lines worked very well. I took a bit of nose weight out to get more turn back. I haven't tried that change yet.
 the brake master cylinder on the El Camino failed as I backed it out of the garage so the roofers could work. As usual I had a time getting a replacement. I settled on one that is square not oval and installed it. Today I made sure all the brake cylinders were working and bled the lines to get it working right.
 I had the school make a full size copy of a template sheet that was posted on a forum. I got the parts cut out and the fuselage about half built. I figure to use the new wing jig building most of the wing panels before removing them from the jig rods. The Gypsy is almost ready to start finishing but I'm just looking at it right now. I don't want to close it up and find something that I forgot to do.
 The electric car is getting an aluminum skin at the moment. We got the sides installed and the top is ready to be bent. The bottom will be bent differently as it doesn't need to be removable to service the car. We will be turning in a wish list of parts before the Christmas break.

Happenings.

I finally got one of the kids to come and fix the garage roof. Then I finally got the picker to come and look at the stuff we want to get rid of. Both on the same day. The guy that I gave the rock stairs to came a few days earlier in the morning and took the stones with a roll back truck. That was not fun.
 The roofer kids got here at 0930 and I figured on using roll roofing so I went to Lowes and got two rolls. Then we found that the roof is 8 inches longer than the roofing so I took the rest back and got two squares or 3 tab shingles. Then the picker came. After she left we found out that even with three people doing the calculations there wasn't enough shingles to finish the roof. Off they went and got some left overs from someone and just had enough to finish the job. A few of the roof boards that were removed were very wet and punky. They figured that the water was getting in under an improperly applied drip edge. That excitement ruined a good flying day to top it all off.
 I changed lines on the P-40 and to 63 feet from 60.5 feet. It made a big difference.  The wind will be light and variable again today so I'll get in some more flights with it.