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Welcome! that´s a nice plane!

I like the mountain camouflage! ) )  hope you get it in the air soon and don´t forget to share your pics and vids in this forum.

Regards

Dimi3

Hello Group,

I bought a header tank with a little bit more capacity to increase my range, this one has about 15 liters (almost 4 gallons); and I will take the opportunity to replace all the fuel lines, as per inspector recommendation to teflon hose and/or aluminium pipe, I know it more expensive this way, however  I won´t have to deal with fuel lines anymore. Out of sight out of mind! (hopefully).

I bought all the fittings on ebay, from racing cars fuel lines, AN-6 and so forth. HOWEVER I came across a problem I had and solved in a very CRUDE way, I Don´t know what type of thread the female WING tank fitting is, I bought it from Brett 3 years ago, and forgot to ask, I placed a NPT 3/8 fitting and it always leaked; but I covered it all up with fuel/oil resistance silicone and work ok.

anybody know what type of thread this whole is?? is a 3/8 but BSP, UNF, ??

Thanks in advance. 

dimi3

Welcome to another world, nice bird.If you ever fly in to St. Maries (S72) look me up.Im usually in Spokane most every weekend in Summer drag racing.Randy

Now if some smart designer would just look at the rear windows on the J3, and use that little channel or some similar on his doors, he could just slip the polycarb into the channel with a rubber seal and not have to worry about screw holes and cracking!

Somebody put an inch of cold, white stuff all over our grass - must be aliens attacking to make us move south!

EDMO

Guess someone eliminated the swivel in the connecting rods?  On what models?

I will have to disconnect mine because I have changed the design to separate flap and aileron control rods - and I'm not as smart as DW - by a long shot!

EDMO

Dean got it right and his design has been improved on.  It takes about 5 seconds to disconnect the controls.  Fewer parts that introduce slop into the aileron controls.

There's one on Barnstormers in the Experimental section for $7500 right now.

Thanks Leni,

     I didn't know that.  I was certainly not trying to diminish what Dean had designed.  It is always easier to improve a design than to make the original.  I thought that maybe some of Denny's team had done that - Guess they must have missed the good DW design on some of the Kitfox models?  Why do the videos always show the controls being disconnected to fold the wings?  Check out the Green Kitfox U-tube video: "Folding Kitfox Wings, by Crazed Pilot".  Happy Birthday to him today!

EDMO

Guys I looking for a 80 hp 912. If anyone knows of anything I'd appreciate you dropping me a note.

EG

You didn't have to disconnect the controls on an avid A through mk IV ...

I am a big fan of DW - But, did he get it right, or just close?

I don't know about any of the Avid models, but there are Kitfox models that let you swing the wings without disconnecting the controls - Looks like someone improved on the DW design.  Anyone have info on which models of either brand folds easier, and how did they do that?

EDMO

Ahhh, sorry mr.. Guess the sweet smell of two stroke blue smoke doesn't do the same thing to your wife as it does to mine if it did you would be running twin 582's on that mangy bird hahahaha

Welcome to the dark side. If your here to hack on Larry step up to the plate and start swinging sweet plane! I love the lexan doors on mine, but flying in the cold temps -30 they don't seem to last long without cracking around the screw holes. I normally replace mine every year, but it's cheap and only takes a couple hours to replace.

Welcome to AFF!! Keep plugging away at your bird and you'll be ready to rock by spring. You probably already know the other KF drivers in the Spokane area. I got my Private ticket at SFF in 2005 when I stationed at Fairchild and grew up not far from Lewiston. Really miss the area.

Hey guys- been a lurker for a while, finally figured I had to sign up over here to give Larry a bad time:-) Used to be a longtime Mooney owner, sold my Mooney this year and bought a low hour Kitfox Model IV. Been pretty much spending the summer getting used to the plane, making all the necessary(to me) changes and trying to get the damn thing to run right. My life is pretty much airplanes, motorcycles, cars, snowmobiles, basically anything with a engine in it.

Here is a summary of my plane-

94 Model IV Longwing 1200

80 HP Rotax 912UL

Warp drive prop switching to IVO in flight adjustable

Updated from bungee to Grove gear

Currently working on my doors(switching to see thru)

I bought the Acrylic bubble doors from LP Aero, cracked them right out of the gate, got pissed off and switched to polycarbonate. I am still working on them and progress has been really slow. Here is the latest in progress pic-

A required service at 300 hrs!!!! Ludicrious I tell you!

It is possible, yes, but that would require redoing the complete firewall forward including the engine mount and cowling.  The Kitfox V and newer use an engine mount that pushes the engine about 6" forward and puts the oil tank on the right side, just below and behind the cylinders.  This was done because that airframe was designed to mount the boat anchor weight certified motors.  Moving weight forward was needed to keep in balance.

The 1-4 Kitfoxes were designed for 75# two stroke motors under the cowl.  When the  912 came along and people were finally sick of fouled plugs, smoke, stink, high file burn and the general unreliability associated with two strokes ( ), Kitfox did what they had to do in order to make them work.  These early 912 mounts kept the motor as compact and rearward as possible.  This is the reason for the odd style oil tank mounting.  It is still far better than the oil tank in the trunk method that Avid used.

I don't really like the setup, but it is far more trouble than worth to reengineer the whole thing.  I thought a long time about redoing this on my project plane.  I finally decided that it still wasn't worth the time and expense to rework the whole FWF.

Some people may not be OK with a slight variation of the wing profile right at the tank, hence the "they won't work" statement... Some of us are not quite so picky and we know we are not building an oshkosh winner, just an honest flying machine... the tanks will work for us that fly our planes instead of polishing them

ohoh... a 4 stroke having issues?? sumbitch, call the wife and tell her the world is ending and you wont be home for dinner!    Just busting your chops Larry.  I am interested to see what you find out and if this takes care of the issue.  Can you mount the tank different and flop the carbs back around

Since this summer, I've been having an issue with vibrations in the 2000-3000 rpm range.

There are airframe issues and there are engine issues.

The 912 engine mount for the Kitfox I-IV mounts the oil tank above and behind the engine.  This requires the intake manifolds to be reversed making a wider gap between the carbs.  This wider mounting exaggerates any vibration by shaking the carbs making the motor sputter making the vibration worse, shaking the carbs more making the engine sputter making the vibration worse, shaking the carbs more …..

Kitfox has a service bulletin to tighten the engine mount dampers due to this known issue.  #SB 54A

I tried all of the obvious things:

1. Synced Carbs
2. Disassembled, cleaned, adjusted and re-synced carbs
3. disassembled, cleaned, installed rebuild kits, adjusted and re-synced carbs
4. Serviced engine mounts per #SB 54A
5. Removed, replaced springs, cleaned and re-assembled gearbox
6. Removed, cleaned, re-shimmed, lubricated and re-assembled gearbox

During the gearbox work, I noticed that there was some spauling on the drive dog and driven gear.

This spauling bothered me.  The techs at LEAF agreed with me.  At light loading the drive will move back and forth and if this movement isn't smooth, a vibration will be caused.

Through the research I did, I also found that these parts have been redesigned to allow for a longer service life.  OEM, the gearbox is supposed to be serviced every 300 hours.  This service is new springs and inspection for damage on the dogs.  My motor has 450 hours.  Ahem...

I got my new gearbox parts today...

Hopefully, sometime in the near future it will get above 0º here and I can rebuild my gearbox again.

Robert,

     Rod just told me - look at "fng post" in Introduce Yourself - that the STOL tanks wont work with the speedwing ribs because of the TOP profile?   WELL - If yours worked, why not others?

     If memory serves me - we talked about adding another layer of rib caps on top, but you did some grinding and got them to work without adding any caps like I did.

EDMO

Try Rob at Performance Products LLC - he is making new ones, alcohol resistant.

If he only has the STOL tanks, you can still use them by glueing a rib under the center of the tank to match the speedwing profile.

EDMO

good call Ed, Rod made my tanks for my speedwing, they are actually for the STOL but i made them work nicely and now I have more fuel capacity.

-Robert-

Thanks for the reply Rod,

     I added the rib on bottom of my undercamber Kitfox-type tanks when I made the Riblett modification to my wings - That worked for me - Didn't know that the top of speedwing ribs were different contour than the Avid STOL.  At least he can get tanks from Airdale, if he can ever find Brett.

EDMO

added - Robert just told me that he got your STOL tanks to work in his speedwing - see his post in "Parts for Sale" in Avid and Kitfox Parts Suppliers.  I now remember when he did that - so, if they work for him.......?

ED

Bryce just post the share link into your post and it will embed same as if you were on a PC.

Rod,

      One of the guys on here was looking for Speedwing tanks - Do you make them, or will the STOL tanks fit?

  I suggested that if he could get the stol tanks, that he could just glue a rib in the center underneath to match profile of speedwing.

EDMO

Hey Ed, the speed wing tanks i build for kitfox are there tools so again i appologise but cannot sell their items. The issue you are going to have with the hi-undercamber tanks I manufacture is that it has the same profile of the rib so it will sit higher when installed in a speed style wing. So its not just the underneth that would have an issue. Hope that helps.