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FWIW - I wouldn't want to troubleshoot this sort of thing with a Fluke DVM. Maybe I'm old school but give me a simple cheap analog meter.

My 172M already had the holes and I made one headrest from some 3/8" alum tube and a motorcycle backrest I found somewhere. Looked like OEM. Didn't cost more than $10 but that was 20 years ago.

The flame tubes were easy to inspect with a flashlight with an extension on it. Any proctologist could do it. Every 350 hrs our 172M could be counted on to have the flame tubes so distorted and cracked that the guts of the muffler would have to be replaced. Aero Fabricators (I recall) was...

Isn't there a longitudinal weld in these needle point Cessna spinners? I recall that anodize appears quite different over that line.

So if you do your water mix-and-shake-drain and toss to remove the ethanol, what's the resulting octane depending on how much (%) water is used? And what happens then when you reduce the remaining water-gasoline temperature? I presume more water further precipitates out.:oops: I wouldn't put...

It may be a fuel stabilizer but the water affinity of E10 is likely what's critical. A stabilizer won't change that very much.

Ethanol problems mostly relate to its enormous affinity for water, whether the water is in a vapor, liquid, or solid (ice) form.

Be careful how you mix 1/4" NPT and -6 (JIC) aircraft fittings. They may seem to sorta screw together, but the 1/4" NPT thread is tapered and will wreck anything else.

Ethanol laced fuel is NOT part of the long term solution for aviation. I essentially had to junk a classic car because of the sour fuel smell, water absorption and eventual fuel pump seizure in the fuel tank of a personal car, when I lent it as an airport courtesy car at KSSQ. Borrowers had...

Adding a small amount of STP to the strut fluid will do remarkable things to reduce strut friction. It even can be just be wiped onto the strut OD where it will be good for weeks. DAMHIK.....

Damage of primary structure or major attachments of a composite airframe probably requires access to an autoclave to be assured of a full strength repair - something that only the manufacturer is likely to have created or have access to. Minor damage to non-critical structures maybe using heat...

Check tachometer calibration. If you face directly into a fluorescent light you should see the prop shadow apparently stop at 1800 rpm and at 2400 rpm. 2100 rpm may be difficult but it might also be apparent.

Or, a sheet of drafting Mylar. It is transparent, dimensionally very stable yet will smoothly take the markings on the "rough" side from a hard pencil. As long as the replacement part is simple sheet with simple bends, and not compound formed, I find it to very useful for creating a new part.

For those contemplating the use of just any DVM to measure plug lead insulation - An ordinary DVM will not test leads unless the DVM is specifically designed to have a very high source voltage - and these are very rare - IOW making it a voltage breakdown test. Testing a plug lead isn't an...

My hangar mate received a load of MoGas from a local FBO that didn't seem to "run right". I tested a sample by adding a small amount of water (about 5%) to determine if there might be alcohol present. Sure enough, the water volume doubled, meaning fuel tested about 5% alcohol. Going back to...

They look like commercial stainless steel screws. Are there stainless versions of the structural screws? I recall structural screws have a shorter thread and a full diameter next to the head, which commercial truss or pan head screws don't have. And get a good quality phillips driver/bit...

An interesting example of torsional vibration coupling to axial (but not radial) can be seen by looking sidewise at a running propeller against a dark background while someone else varies the engine at moderate rpms. The prop blades can then be seen as vibrating (actually flexing) out of its...

That's radial vibration of course. The frequency is the rpm, and not a torsional harmonic. Torsional vibrations are so spooky in that they really don't manifest themselves to us mere mortals. Instead they just shed prop tips and wreck alternator drive belts. The 172M that I had for 30 years...

Do other kinds of piston engines also have these moving-pendulum weights on their crankshafts? I'm thinking of automobile engines and diesel engines? Probably some bigger diesel engines might, but I'm not aware of any car engines that use the same damper concept. However, most car engines have...

The so-called "counterweights" also have pins and bushings that retain them, arranged so that they are mechanically a very short length pendulum. They each have a comparatively heavy weight. The effective pendulum length depends on the pin and bushing diameter differences, such that the...