Stripped!

Thanks to Jim Russell for helping me completely tear apart the plane last night. I helped him with some certification stuff on his plane and he helped me pull the fuel tank, seat, pod, prop, drive shaft, and engine. Sounds like a fair trade, doesn't it?

Anyway, I can really see what's going on with the structure of the plane now that all the extraneous parts have been removed. I sent Mark Smith from Tri-State Kites in Indiana an email about the painted (and non-anodized) tubes. The original seller had called them Mark Smith mods and I wanted to check on their integrity as they are non factory parts. Mark has been a Quicksilver dealer since they first started back in the good old days and he has been modifying MX's since the 80's. When I contacted him, he was actually familiar with my particular plane (The red, white, and blue Super from Texas). He said the painted tubes are ok as long as they're in good shape otherwise. I personally would prefer to have nice new anodized tubes, but at this point that would be mostly cosmetic and extremely expensive. Note: Anodization is a process used by Quicksilver to coat the tubes in all their aircraft. It serves to prevent corrosion and works better than paint. In my case, I will inspect carefully for corrosion while the plane is taken down. Any new tubes will be anodized.

My plan is to ensure the integrity of the tubes on the trike and then order whatever I need. In my spare time, I'm going to pull the head of the engine (Rotax 503, by the way) and do a thorough decarbon/inspection. Mark will be helping me take on the engine inspection as I've never done clearance measurements or inspected cranks before.