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Post by Kereru on Nov 18, 2008 16:48:45 GMT 12
Blimey, I've never seen that one before. Where is Awhitu? Awhitu is on the Awhitu Peninsula and about a half hours drive from Waiuku. The ARC Awhitu Regional Park is just a few metres from the old Bristol Freighter on RHS.(marker with A in it on map) From down on the beach you can look across to Auckland International Airport. www.arc.govt.nz/parks/our-parks/parks-in-the-region/awhitu/The place marked Matakawau on the map is where I lived as a youngster and into my teenage years. It used to take almost an hour from there to Waiuku on a metal road for half the journey so times have certainly changed since the 1950s. Cheers, Colin
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 18, 2008 18:13:20 GMT 12
Thanks Colin. How long has this Freighter fuselage been there? Is this one of the ones that used to sit at Ardmore alongside the sole survivor there?
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Post by Radialicious on Nov 18, 2008 19:35:41 GMT 12
Great shots Colin! Now that's what I call a project! Might need to do a bit of scrub cutting prior to taxiing her out of there though. Had a good day in Bristolville today. I fitted the 'new' starter motor to the port engine and she worked beautifully. There was very little of the theatrics that we came to enjoy from the old starter. After the necessary short engine run I took the old starter into the workshop for an autopsy. The clutch and gearbox side of things seemed OK and it soon became clear that the DC motor itself was the problem. The armature was frozen and a check of the end bearing showed a twisted and munted confetti of balls, cage and races. I hope to be able to bodge together another one or two starters from the components that we have in storage. It will be nice to have a couple of spares. The job of replacing the starter wasn't near as dramatic as I'd expected. However, offering up the new one to the engine was a bit of a grunt-fest. It reminded me of a fuel control unit change on a Skyhawk - very heavy, awkward gear and not a lot of access. The port engine on CPT is owned by a gentleman in Blenheim and not by the Marlborough Aero Club. Cam has been keen on this project ever since I first ran it past him back in March. I gave him a call today to see if he wanted to see it being run again. The answer was a predictable one and he was soon out at the airfield. He had never been in the cockpit during an engine run and I offered him the RH seat. However he was more than happy to stand a few metres from the engine and watch and listen to it bark into life from the ground. It is a fantastic thing to watch from up close and he seemed to enjoy standing nice and close by himself. I likened it to a Bristol Freighter lap-dance..... ;D Another club member who has shown a lot of interest in the project was able to join me in the cockpit and he left the gig absolutely buzzing. It is cool that such an oily old rattler can affect people so much. As we were preparing to start the old girl, a C172 was shutting down at the fuel pump alongside. It was hilarious to watch their reaction as the old monster burst into noisy, smoky life unannounced as they were swiping their card. The refuel was quickly abandoned as they raced to find their cameras. They seemed to enjoy the suprise. Gavin Conroy turned up today to chew the fat and he mentioned something that made for an interesting piece of fact. He has recently been lucky enough to be a passenger in an original Bristol Fighter in flight and an original Bristol Freighter on the ground. I said that not many people could brag about such a coincidence this year. Tonight I seem to think that it is quite unlikely that anyone has ever been in both an original Brisfit and a Frightener in their lifetime. Maybe, maybe not............
The other big event on the airfield today was the arrival of a 40' container that was delivering a piece of history back to Omaka. A small syndicate has bought WACO ZK-ALA back to Blenheim from Oz. The WACO was bought new by the Marlborough Aero Club back in the 30's and it is great to see it back here. It is complete and partly restored. Its new owners will take her a few steps backwards and re-do some of the restoration. She is a good looking project and is in good hands. Her previous owner bent over backwards to ensure that Omaka had the first bite at the cherry and was really keen to see her back here also.
A good day out and about....
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Post by Peter Lewis on Nov 18, 2008 20:58:46 GMT 12
Bristol ZK-EPA has been at Awhitu since about 1986. I saw it there in 1998, looks to be still in the same place That's great news about the Waco. It was ZK-AEL with MAC then into the RNZAF as NZ575, survived the war and back to Marlborough as ZK-ALA. Later years saw it go to Rotorua with Stan Blackmore and James until it was damaged in 1958. Colin Giltrap took it to Australia.
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Post by hairy on Nov 18, 2008 22:02:09 GMT 12
That's great news about the Waco. It was ZK-AEL with MAC then into the RNZAF as NZ575, survived the war and back to Marlborough as ZK-ALA. Later years saw it go to Rotorua with Stan Blackmore and James until it was damaged in 1958. Colin Giltrap took it to Australia.
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Post by Radialicious on Nov 19, 2008 20:05:09 GMT 12
Had another day off today so I decided to square away the repair to the coozed starter motor. At stumps last night I had it mostly in pieces and the culprit was a very worn and cooked rear motor bearing. On the way to the airfield I popped into Eckford Engineering in town. Tony Wytenburg had put me onto a bloke there who had a small stash of Bristol bits that he was keen to pass on. All of the parts were brand new and in original packaging. Like a lot of things that have survived, some are real random and not immediately useful. As I fossicked through the box of goodies a small bearing caught my eye. It was quite familiar and I suspected that it might be a brand new starter bearing. Sure enough, back in the workshop it was confirmed as such. I let Phil know that his generosity was immediately of benefit to ZK-CPT. Trippy shit! As I was reassembling the starter, the boys from Marlborough Helicopters rocked on in with a machining job for Tony to do. A bloke who was with them saw what I was doing and said, "don't bother buggering around fixing that thing, there are heaps of others around the place". Fair enough I thought and carried on the reassembly. At arvo smoko the same guy came bowling in and dropped yet another complete shiny starter in my lap. It just about destroyed my lap as they weigh almost 20kg. My mates had a good old giggle at my good fortune throughout the day. By the end of the day my repaired one was finished and along with the other gifted one it was off to the trusty old Honda for a functional check. Even on 12VDC, they both spun up and ran nicely. A few days ago we had a Bristol with only one operative starter motor. Tonight we have two operatives and two spares! What a funny old day....
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Post by baz62 on Nov 23, 2008 11:00:59 GMT 12
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 23, 2008 12:54:30 GMT 12
I've got a teeshirt (I'm wearing it right now) with a cut-away diagram of that OBERURSEL UR.2 rotary engine screen-printed on the back. The Vintage Aviator have got them for sale ($25.00 each). I purchased my teeshirt from TVA's merchendise tent at the recent flying display at Hood Aerodrome. I imagine they will have huge stocks of them for sale at Wings over Wairarapa and probably also at Classic Fighters at Omaka.
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Post by baz62 on Nov 23, 2008 12:59:39 GMT 12
Yes I think I'll have to make an effort to go to Omaka this time. I've done Wanaka a lot including the Gold 3 day pass. Hope these guys are there as I'd love to talk to them. I'm in a similar engineering field although we don't build anything like those beautiful engines! Have to get the Tshirt!!
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Post by Radialicious on Nov 24, 2008 21:15:22 GMT 12
Yeah Baz, the TVAL website is a beauty eh? Quite inspiring what they are up to. With a couple of days off, I set to kicking off Plan A to get my big engine on the road to Freedupville. As I have found with ZK-CPT's sick engine, freeing up a 14 cylinder sleeve valve radial is a bit of a mission. Plan A is based on freeing up one cylinder at a time. There are two surfaces in each cylinder that need the treatment. One is the cylinder to sleeve surface and the other is the sleeve to piston/rings surface. The sleeve as we now know, reciprocates (up and down) and rotates (side to side) so that any point of the sleeve describes an elliptical pattern in the cylinder. The photo below shows the remnants of this path in the cooked-on oil deposits on this open cylinder. The sleeve is visible down in the cylinder and two of the three inlet ports are shown slightly open. At the top of the sleeve are the witness marks of the two sealing rings of the cylinder head. The next photo shows the clockwork nature of the sleeve drive system. It is a frightful sight when the front cover is removed! Working outwards from the crankshaft sun gear are seven layshaft gears and pinions. Each pinion drives two sleeve crank gears which through the cranks themselves operates the sleeves. With everything frozen solid and all the gears meshing, it is impossible to try and free up the components of one cylinder without being hampered by the other thirteen. For Plan A to work, I removed the seven layshaft gears. With these gone, the sleeves suddenly become immobilised by their own circumstances and not that of all the others. From here I am going to battle through first removing the cylinders and getting those surfaces all nice and free again. After refitting the cylinders I hope to use some measure of persuasion to push the sleeve down into the cylinder and gradually work them from the pistons. Below is a cylinder head. It is very deep and finned internally. The sleeve ports close by sliding right up to the top of the cylinder head. Cooling the head is achieved by ducting air down, into and back out of the head. The next shots are some before and after photos of the inside of the prop shaft reduction gearbox. It is a pretty blokey piece of kit and cleaned up nice.
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Post by baz62 on Nov 25, 2008 15:49:13 GMT 12
That reduction gearbox looks amazing Al. Did you strip it right down? Must be interesting doing the timing for the pistons and sleeves. I presume they were helpful and put some timing marks on all those gears? ? Baz
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Post by Radialicious on Nov 25, 2008 19:26:45 GMT 12
Hey Baz, yeah it is a nice piece of kit. Very blokey. The housing wouldn't look out of place as the bell on a cruise liner or fire station. I guess it needs to be pretty 'stout' to transfer and reduce 2000hp and hang a 14 foot aluminium prop. The photo really needs a can of CRC alongside to give it some scale. When I show it off to visitors I have to make sure there are no children playing in amongst the gears before I turn it over. It was 'frozen' when I got to it but that was due to lack of use and gummed up old oil and grease. It took a bit of cleaning but because it was so big and blokey, it didn't need to come to bits. Whilst I am restoring the rest of the engine I am tempted to hook it up to a small block Chev (a-la Billy T James) and use it as a blender or maybe even a washing machine. My 'Bristol tinkering clothes' could probably use a 350 cu.in. washing machine. My green shirt is kinda on its last legs. The stubborn understains are the only things holding it together. My good mate Gavin Conroy challenged me on the state of my shirt last week. I replied that I will replace it when I get my Bristol Guzzlebox freed up and able to be turned over by hand. Plan A went according to plan today and I am proud to announce the following. [glow=red,2,300]4 OF 14 CYLINDERS AND SLEEVES FREE![/glow]Plan A is working for the moment. Most sleeves are still stuck solid but the persuasion I used on three of them was a thick wooden disc and hammer. That was sufficient to get them moving. The other sleeve was free as and moved by itself as I removed the last 3 cylinder heads this arvo. I'll give some thought as to how and what I will use to (sensibly) up the tempo on the remainder. As the Guzzlebox gets slowly closer to becoming noisy again, I am starting to need a Bristol cylinder base nut spanner to get my clinders off and restored. Mr and Mrs Bristol went away from a standard 6 or 12 point nut to a 30 something spline drive nut that makes removing cylinders difficult beyond the extreme. If anyone reading this knows of anyone who has a crows-foot type spline drive spanner that they don't need or a keen to lend, I will be most grateful. A good day! P.S. the sleeve gear train is very very clever and the overhaul manual spells out the reassembly positions and sequence very clearly. I'm looking forward to being at the stage where those chapters become necessary
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Post by baz62 on Nov 26, 2008 14:49:50 GMT 12
Thanks Al mot informative. And I know what you mean about dirty work shirts. I've got one where the collar is only sort of attached to the rest of the shirt!! Ask Shorty on here about the cylinder base nut spanner as I seem to recall he had some Bristol stuff knocking around although this was a while ago. I'll also ask my ex-RNZAF friend at work in case he happens to have one( or knows who might have). Cheers Baz PS My friend at work hasn't got one but he wondered if 3TTS at Woodborne might have one?
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Post by Radialicious on Nov 30, 2008 22:39:59 GMT 12
Phew! That is the end of work for a couple of days. I got to see an awful lot of the country over the weekend and also saw how small we are as a country. On Friday, I was informed of the fact that I was flying family of one of the A320 crash victims to CHCH. When the manifest was datalinked to the cockpit I was saddened to associate the surname of these passengers to a friend that I knew worked at Harewood. I worked with Noel Marsh for several years in the RNZAF. Needless to say, I made sure that we provided his Mum and Dad with everything we could to make their flight in an Air NZ aircraft as comfortable as possible. It was a big day out and about. After CHCH we departed for a return trip to Nelson. After that, we had two return trips to Hokitika before overnighting in CHCH. On the right day when upper winds and flight conditions make for a smooth ride, I try to make the trip across the Alps as scenic and touristy as I can. Usually this involves a mention to the passengers as we welcome them aboard, that once the seatbelt sign is off, they can make their way forward to enjoy the view from the windscreen. On these trips we have about 10-15 minutes in the cruise where we get a few interested passengers and their cameras to enjoy and record the wide angle views. On Friday, one of these passengers asked if we knew Noel. It turned out that he was her Landlord and she was quite upset by what had happened. Several passengers passed on their best wishes and condolences to us and the company. It was a great weekend to be in the office but a tough weekend to be an Air New Zealander. I really take my hat off to Rob Fyfe, the CEO for the way he is dealing with the aftermath. Anyway, the tough weekend made me look forward to Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (my rostered days off). Pat Donovan is back in town for a short visit from the USA and is dead keen to see the Bristol in full song. He left Marlborough just a few days short of CPT's awakening and was sad to miss all the excitement. Tomorrow we will find the ways and means of getting enough fuel into her for a bit of a leg stretch. Pat joined United Airlines on the DC-6 and flew every Boeing product that United operated until his retirement on the B777 a few years ago. I am looking forward to showing him how the British did things........
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 1, 2008 10:57:55 GMT 12
Sounds like a tough weekend mate. My condolences.
Good luck with the next taxi run.
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Post by baz62 on Dec 1, 2008 15:06:02 GMT 12
Yeah NZ is a small place. My exRNZAF friend at work is also ex Air New Zealand and knew one of the Christchurch chaps. Sad time for all.
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Post by Radialicious on Dec 1, 2008 22:19:47 GMT 12
We had fun in the sun today with our beloved Bristol. She hadn't had both engines run and taxiied for a few months so there was quite a bit of work to do before we could kick off. After getting her to the fuel pumps, Pat and I went halves in a 150 litres of Air BPs best and then towed her into the open. As per normal, word had got out and again we had a very welcome audience. Owen Hughes shared the cockpit with me as I started the engines. He had seen it run recently but hadn't sat in the cockpit of a living Bristol since his last flight as Captain in 1976. He did the Argosy gig from then on until retirement. He was chuffed as and swapped the experience for some circuits in his 90hp Cub afterwards. Pat was down at ground level watching the big engines come to life for the first time ever. His reaction was all I had hoped it to be. Youtube doesn't really give you the full idea about what this old girl is all about in the flesh. Once everything was up an running, Owen departed and Pat climbed aboard for some taxi fun. I took her into the open and gave Pat a bit of a brief as to where things were and we soon swapped seats for a bit of a tour of Omaka. After we parked her up and the dust settled, to troubleshoot a couple of small problems, I decided to start the left engine. For the first time since B-day, she didn't want to come out and play. In fact she was a real 'mongrel' to start and run. Owen welcomed me to the world of a warm Hercules. Its a completely different monster and will force me to have a round table with all the old-schoolers to make starting her a bit more predictable. I got there in the end and once she was running, she ran beautifully. The old fable about starting round engines rang true today, loud and clear! Quite loud actually. Pat and I will be back tomorrow to convert a few more litres......
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Post by Gavin Conroy on Dec 2, 2008 16:02:21 GMT 12
Al, its great to see you have been able to share the thrill with so many others, and Pat really looks at home in that photo.
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Post by Radialicious on Dec 2, 2008 20:37:05 GMT 12
Yeah Gav he was right at home and had a lot of fun. His Lockheed 12 is in the final stages of its repair and today Omaka was alive with interesting radials. The Lockheed spent some time out and about on the airfield today along with a freshly restored Boeing Stearman. The Bristol has given me a bit of grief with an oil pressure problem on the STBD engine. It shouldn't be all that hard to fix but there are so many variables that it takes time to isolate them all. My Bristol mantra comes to mind. Man built her, man can fix her. That doesn't apply to the carb however because that was built by a woman (literally) - a different kind of grief and suffering. As Reg Taylor once suggested, "Don't go anywhere near the carb unless you need to. You'd have much more fun spending two weeks with your Mother-in-law or doing your own dentistry..." CPT has always had a dicky STBD oil temperature gauge so I decided to swap it over to see if there was anything significant with the oil temperature. I used my new camera to record the wiring details before I launched. I'm pretty stoked with the capabilities of such a small piece of kit. The back of the oil temp gauge on standard focus My watch on superdooper focus Anyway, after treating a number of possible sources of the problem there was suddenly the need to turn and burn. Craig Buchanan (nzompilot) rocked on up to catch up. He has followed and documented the Bristol project from the early days. Today he was able to step out from behind the viewfinder and get amongst the nuts and bolts. ZK-CPT noticed his interest and hands-on involvement, and as we pulled the STBD prop through 8 blades, she burped a very healthy lower cylinder purge from her exhausts. Burping was a pretty close description but vomiting or (being more accurately, as from the exhaust) crapping could also be considered. It sounded most like a burp though and with the strong nor'wester, he wore most of it. I felt pretty bad as I should have been there to take the hit because I was dressed for it. There was a small consolation that Craig was wearing a Mr Messy T-shirt. I hope the stains come out but I suspect they won't.... Again I wish it were me because stains like those would help keep my sifty old shirt intact. We should have got a photo because it was a seriously good hit. We both had something in common as we settled into the pilots seats for a short engine run. Again it was great to have someone else nearby to absorb the noise with me. We ran both engines briefly. I was keen to see if yesterdays reluctance from the port engine was to be repeated today. Thankfully it wasn't. The oil pressure problem on the STBD engine didn't go away however. Tomorrow is another day in Bristolville and I already have a few streets to visit.
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Post by nzompilot on Dec 2, 2008 22:20:46 GMT 12
There was a small consolation that Craig was wearing a Mr Messy T-shirt. I hope the stains come out but I suspect they won't.... Shirt will not recover But at least it gives me something to wear next time im up close and personal with CPT without having to worry about the consequences. These can all be seen at this thread rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi?board=photography&action=display&thread=8039
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