F86 Annual Inspection Photos

[Sabremech]

Breaking News!!!!!!!!
We received the call today that our engine has passed the test cell and will be in the shipping container on Monday. We'll be really busy soon. A couple of weeks back we shipped a second engine to the repair shop as the first one has low compressor discharge pressure which won't allow the engine to spool up to 100%. The second engine is the engine that will be sent back to us. It had a vibration problem that has been repaired and is ready to ship.
Lot's of little things to finish up on in preparation for the engine install and ops checks. Check back as I'll be posting some pictures of the engine installation, test runs and first flight.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

[Rod Schneider]

Great News!! I can't wait to see the updates!

[Sabremech]

Thought I would post a quick update. The F86 engine is in the process of changing over the components from the old engine and we hope to have it installed by Thursday. It's been quite busy here as of late with the Stearman wing being finished and needing to get it painted and installed. A lot more work than expected to fit a new build wing. It flew for the first time Sunday and some more today. The T2 is in the maint hangar with us working on the gear problem. We have found out what was wrong and have removed both main gear actuators for reseal. We have the nose gear actuator to pull yet and go through it to make sure it didn't get contaminated or have old seals that will bite us later. We'll do gear swings some time next week and have the Buckeye back up. We have quite a few ops checks to do to the Sabre, so it will be a little bit yet before its back airborne. Once we're done with the Sabre we'll be headed to Oshkosh to make some progress on the A4. Stay tuned as I promise to post some pictures soon.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Thanks for the updates, David.

I am looking forward to seeing the Sabre, Skyhawk and Buckeye flying at air shows in 2009.

[Sabremech]

Should see the Sabre and the Buckeye at Airshows 2009. Not sure about the A4 as we have some parts issues to overcome.
We worked on the Sabre some more today taking care of a few more of the misc squawks.
The voltage regulator was reinstalled after locating some vibration isolators that would work. After a little modification it is installed and hooked up.


Finished assembling the R/H rear engine mount with a new keyway we had made as new ones could not be found.


The sheetmetal work for the smoke tank compartment is almost finished and will be riveted in soon after priming the parts.


The engine is almost ready to install. The hydraulic pumps are on and associated plumbing hooked up.




We dug out our spare exhaust cone as the one that is on the old engine is cracked again.


With our new inspection program in place we had to pull the main landing gear actuator clevis bolts and have them magnetic particle tested. Good thing we did as one of them was cracked. Here's a picture of the landing gear actuator and the mounting lug for the clevis pin.


Hopefully we'll have pictures of the engine installed tomorrow.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

[Sabremech]

The engine has been installed and in the mounts. We have checked the alignment of the inlet and found that acceptable. Next we installed the tailpipe to check the engine for alignment to the aft fuselage. If this checks good, we'll remove the tail and continue to hook up the engine. If not, we'll remove the tail and take the engine loose from the mounts and make an adjustment then do the alignment checks all over again.
Here's a couple of photos of the tail as we left it today. Hopefully we'll be well into the process of hooking the engine up on Saturday.







David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

[Holedigger]

All that work just to convert kerosene to smoke and noise?!?!

Just kidding. She is looking sweet! So many hours to keep an old gal safely in the air!
Thanks for the update and pics

[Sabremech]

I spent the morning and early afternoon aligning the engine to the fuselage tail. My first try was with the R/H mount in the neutral position. The tailpipe ended up being too close to the left hand side of the tail. Back apart again. I moved the eccentric one slot counterclockwise to move the tailpipe to the right.
Here's a few pictures of the fixed L/H mount and the adjustable R/H mount.



Back on with the fuselage to find I still was too close to the left with the tailpipe. My concern of moving it one more slot was that the inlet would end up out of alignment.



This final postion made the tailpipe end up where I needed it to, but the inlet shifted. It's not perfect but it will have to do. It's more important to get the tailpipe lined up than the inlet. I guess the third time is a charm once again. I've become pretty profifcient of installing the tail and removing it by myself after todays work.

I wrapped up the rest of the day by installing the exhaust cone and setting the turbine blades to shroud clearance, installed the tailpipe with a new thermocouple harness and the flaps to get them off the shop floor.





On to hooking the engine up this week and begining hydraulic ops checks. I'll post more photos as we make more progress.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Last edited by Sabremech on Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Sabremech]

Today we finished hooking up the engine and were doing our final inspection prior to installing the tail when we discovered two problems. We inspected the intake a couple of days ago and had a little oil in the inlet. I didn't get concerned at that time as I felt I may have had some oil leak out when we changed the routing of some of the oil and hydraulic lines on the front of the engine. I cleaned it off planning to inspect again and see if it cleared up like I thought it would.
Today we inspected the inlet and found more oil!. We also found a problem with a support bracket for the engine inlet that will require a repair. The decision was made to remove the engine and find the oil leak now versus working the problem with the engine installed and the limited space in the inlet. We also could get a better look at the bracket and repair that much easier.
So here we are with the engine in the stand waiting for us to fix it. The oil leak has been found and we will be replacing a gasket in the accessory gearbox. It seems that after the engine was installed and oil added our leak developed. We should have a new gasket Saturday with hopes of re-installing the engine Saturday afternoon.
We'll keep all of you posted who are watching our progress. Thanks for viewing our work and feel free to ask any questions if you think of any.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

[Sabremech]

The oil leak has been taken care of and the engine re-installed. Here's a picture of our pesky oil leak.


And here's a picture of the gearbox opened to replace the gasket.


It is mostly hooked up and we will start ops checks this week. Look for an announcement that we are airworthy again soon!
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

[Broken-Wrench]

Dave do you use Hi-loks anywhere? Do you have the need for some?

[Sabremech]

Just a quick update with photos to follow. We started up the new engine today in the F86 and ran it at idle for about 10 minutes. We have some minor rigging to do to the throttle and a small fuel leak to address before we do high power and taxi runs tomorrow. There should be another Sabre taking to the air soon.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

Just a quick update with photos to follow. We started up the new engine today in the F86 and ran it at idle for about 10 minutes. We have some minor rigging to do to the throttle and a small fuel leak to address before we do high power and taxi runs tomorrow. There should be another Sabre taking to the air soon.
David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

OUTSTANDING, David! Can't wait to see her back in the air.

[Sabremech]

Thanks for checking in on us Jim. We're getting really close to flying. We didn't get to the high power engine run yesterday because of the weather. Kind of cruddy here right now. We did get most of the airplane paneled up and just have the access panels open that we need to do leak checks and adjustments during the next engine run. We did put the airplane back on jacks to do some more gear swings and work the one problem of the gear handle light on when the gear are up and locked. We haven't fixed it yet although we thought we had found the problem last night only to have the light still on. We'll get that fixed next week and then all the hydraulic checks will be complete.
Here are a few new photos of our Sabre. We keep making it better every year and removed a panel that had some patches on it to install a brand new one. It has all the decals on it from the factory and looks great on the airplane after a little polishing.



Here's one more with the tail on and almost in one piece.


David
WHF Maint
www.warbirdheritagefoundation.org

[BHawthorne]

I love the look of polished sheetmetal. Makes for a really attractive aircraft. Definitely an eye catcher.