Hanging it up...

 It's time.

 

 For once, weighing more than the engine came in handy. Gotta work on that, though. 

Another day of playing "How long can you hold your breath?"

About 30 minutes later...

Do SeaReys dream of blue skies and what's out there? OspRey does. 

 

You never forget your first...

It's been..... almost 50 years. I was a kid dreaming of the sky. I can't believe she'd just appear one day on the ramp at my airport. 

 

Hello, old friend. You're as beautiful as I remember. 

 

 

Fueling around

Starting to work on the engine, I quickly discovered the muffler needed a diverter welded on it. A call to Jim, and it was on the way for a Florida vacation. 

That made me tackle something I've been avoiding. It's been over 10 years since I swung the gear and the wheel bearings needed to be greased. The Bellingham hangar had an overhead winch that could lift the entire airplane, there's no way I can rig one up in the new hangar so I finally had to break down and buy some Harbor jacks. BUT, it turns out the gear legs have changed, and the LSX legs are higher than the Classic legs. Even at full extension I needed almost 6" of additional blocks, and OspRey never felt safe when she was jacked up. Good excuse to break down, spend some money, and buy the bigger motorcycle/ATV jacks. She's solid as a rock on them, I can even *carefully* rock her back and forth if I need to apply a bit of effort.

And another miserable job to do. The keelguard I bought was delaminating, turns out they had a bad batch way back when. Good news is they gave me a new roll, bad news is I have to peel it and all the residual glue off. Groan....

 Next came the fuel system. PA uses a filter only, but I wanted a gascolator in my system. As much as I wanted to keep it SeaRey standard, the PA location/system just wasn't going to work for me. 

Luckily, my old friend Ken Berger built a beautiful fuel system so I took his basic design and updated it for OspRey. 

 

 

I also replaced the fuel sump hose. It was 11 years old and rubber should be replaced every 10, so while I had everything apart it was a good time. Getting the old hose off and the new one on was a 3 day process, when I worked my arm down into the sump area I KNEW it was going to hurt but it had to be done, and on the third day I felt the right shoulder go *pop*. I was supposed to start a 6 day trip the next day but that was out of the question. It sucks getting old.

 

Just before I left for this trip the muffler came. Beautiful work.

 

 Miss you, Ken.