Hay all encountered a situation upon inspection after a hard landing, the tail spring had bent about 30 degrees so I machined a new spring that was twice as wide and an 8th inch thicker (overkill?), well I did not want to do this again. The good news is that I gained quite a bit of turn radius (I can pivot on my wing tips) and I installed a rubber noise damper so the tail wheel noise is significantly reduced. I also gained about 1 inch of runway view on roll up. It does not spring as much on touch down but I think that is also a plus, the bird seems to settle faster. Well that solved I filled her up and took to the air only to have loss of rpm's on the the forth downwind. mixture meter lean, fuel pressure low . Ok so I pulled the filter, clean. Did several static tests, normal. Replaced the cowling and taxied out. Run up, normal. again at about downwind I get rough running and rpm's at no more than 2500 mixture now reads rich, fuel pressure high(5.8).When I started the bird several days later she ran fine until downwind.
Am thinking that do to the added heat in cowling (exhaust wrap removed for cabin heat), I might be getting vapor lock. Any comments; ideas; experience; or suggestions very welcome. thanks in advance. Joel ------ http://USFamily.Net/info - Unlimited Internet - From $8.99/mo! ------
