My engine has been naughty. That is the 50cc two-stroke engine in my model plane – an 88-inch (2.23 metres) wingspan Extra 300. It stopped in the air on Sunday – only the second time it has done this in 240 flights. The front bearing was loose, so I took the engine out of the plane and pulled it apart. The piston ring was gummed up, so I cleaned it all and reassembled it with a new bearing and special Loctite to fix it into its housing.
This sort of work takes me back to my younger years pulling apart motorbike engines, car engines and racing kart engines. This little engine is easy to work on and the bits are cheap, so that’s good!
I can’t test it yet cos the weather is atrocious. Torrential rain most of today and lots of flooded roads across the whole of Sydney. A good time to be in the workshop.
