STI Farm Fox Build Log

[Shadowrider]

Nice! Some good results. I agree the importance to balance your prop. Now just for your new prop to show up right?

[Kitfox Pilot]

[QUOTE=Shadowrider;113397]Nice! Now just for your new prop to show up right?[/QUOTE

Yes! 6 more weeks...or so, you know how orders go these days.

[Kitfox Pilot]

One of my friends building, Fred Bongard, sent me these photos of how he mounted the radiators on slide adjusters to make them fit the cowls exactly.
I thought this was a great idea, so I wanted to post this to help others who are building.

Edit: Slots can be made by drilling holes top and bottom and taking a dremel cut off disk to connect the holes.

[Kitfox Pilot]

Well, the 916 is down for the hopefully last Service Bulletin.......
The gearbox is headed in for a new case after failing the case hardness test required for the service bulletin.

[bbs428]

I'm not impressed with Rotax delivering this $$$$$ flagship engine with such a glaring basic flaw in the metallurgy.

Glad to see you're at the end of the tunnel on all the recall stuff. Hope you're flying soon Harlan!

[Kitfox Pilot]

Thanks Brett. I agree someone in quality control really dropped the ball on this one. The recall was on all IS engines so I believe I read 20k cases had to be checked?? I read 1 in 4 failed the hardness test. Supposably the cases were heated to high while cooking the power coat.
Hope to catch up on some flying when I get it back.
Hope to get over your way sometime this summer. Harlan

[MikeFairbanks]

I still haven't checked my 916 Harlan. I had signed up for the Rotax classes in Anchorage and was going to do the test then, but they got cancelled because not enough people signed up. So now I've got to find someone that can do the test, or where to get the tools to do it myself.

[Kitfox Pilot]

I still haven't checked my 916 Harlan. I had signed up for the Rotax classes in Anchorage and was going to do the test then, but they got cancelled because not enough people signed up. So now I've got to find someone that can do the test, or where to get the tools to do it myself.

Hello Mike,
It is a real pain in the butt to get all this done and rotax does not cover any of your trouble.
We had to travel 6 hours and spend the night to get ours tested. Then ship the gearbox to get the case replaced a few months later when they had got finally got parts. We are out around 500$ by the time we get this all taken care of.
There are a couple of rotax mechanics about 70 miles from me, but neither were going to spend the money to buy the hardness tester to do the test. I doubt rotax would honor the test if you did it yourself in less you take their schooling. The testers are 800 for the cheapest one I found.
So, we decided to haul ours to get it tested while it was still in the crate thinking maybe we could leave the engine to get it fixed but at that time they
didn't have any parts for the fix and didn't know when they would.
So here we are hoping to get the engine fixed and maybe fly it for a while??

[MikeFairbanks]

8h 44m drive to the only service center in Alaska... and shipping to/from Alaska is very expensive. I wonder if I can pull just the gearbox and ship it to have it tested and repaired if needed? Where did you have to send yours for the repair? Do you have any contact information? Thanks

[Kitfox Pilot]

The engine case and gearbox both have to be tested. I was told 1 out of 20 engine cases didn't pass and 1 out of 4 gearboxes did not pass.
I thought you had one of the early engines that didn't have to be tested. The latter ones are the bad ones.
If you find one that doesn't pass, you can ship it to https://lockwood.aero/ .
They are the best people I have ever dealt with.