Today was a major milestone day, we installed the prop! This was something I’d be holding off on, but with my parents here to help, it was a good opportunity to get it installed.
The first step is to remove the a cap which then allows oil to pass into the constant speed prop hub. There are different methods, but having never done this before I thought it was best not to drill anything, and instead try to remove it with a rod and hammer. Since I couldn’t bring myself to hammer away on the end of a very expensive engine, I let Dad do the job. His steady hand made this an easy task, although we were surprised at how much force it took to eventually pop it out.
The prop needs a couple of spinner plates mounted before it’s attached to the engine, so we followed the manual and Vans instructions to install these.
I also cleaned out the area behind the cap we removed to ensure the prop would mount cleanly.
Borrowing my neighbor’s engine hoist, and with a strap suspending the prop, we carefully hoisted, positioned and installed the prop. It only goes one way, and cannot be rotated at this time, so we had to carefully measure the clearance between the tip of the prop and the garage door, and other shelving. It fit with about 1 inch of clearance. I think I’ll find a way to put the plane into the garage nose first, which will solve the clearance issues, and maybe allow me to keep the canopy installed.
Everything went well today, and I’m stoked to have the prop on now. None of the prop bolts are final torqued, I’ll wait until I’m confident it won’t need to come off again before doing that.
