I was over to the airport on the weekend and saw a new hangar just going up. Hopefully it’s for an airplane as the last hangar that was sold, a guy from the Rotary Club bought it and he doesn’t fly.

I’m back to my install of a Lycoming O235 for the VP. The only really pressing question I have now is whether or not I should be using this engine. I went onto Yahoo groups/Volksplane and no one has ever installed an engine that size on a VP and one guy cautioned me about using it, he said the horsepower and weight may be too much for the firewall and longerons. My thinking is that the Lycoming doesn’t weigh that much more than the VW, but the HP is significantly more, the VW was about 70-75 and this one is 100. Bernie and I also beefed up the frame of the fuselage between the longerons making it quite a bit stronger now. If anyone has any ideas, I would sure welcome some feedback.

I bought this Lycoming sight-unseen from the US. The guy seemed very straight and included the logbooks for the engine. It was pickled in 2000 with 936 hours since rebuild. The last airplane it was on was an Acrosport. It came with a Sensenich prop and all the baffling for a pressure cowl. The only things that weren’t good were the magnetos, but the guy warned me about that.

I wanted to get the engine inspected and a run-up to ensure that I have something that is in good shape. I took it to Lance at Alberta Aero Engines (was told he knows his stuff) in Edmonton and when he saw it he thought that it was in very good shape at least from the outside. I had to laugh. A buddy of mine came with me and when Lance commented “the last time I saw one of these engines it was in a museum”, my buddy looked at me and said, “You’re going to install that in your airplane?” Obviously, he’s a non-flyer.

This engine started its life in a Piper Cub which was built in 1946. This plane was damaged in a tornado on April 15, 1956, with 841.40 hours and was removed and stored until June 1, 1960, at which time it was given a major overhaul. Then it was installed on a modified Stits Playboy and according to the logs they played with several props until they got it right.

There seems to be a discrepancy in the logs because on May 27, 1963, the engine was removed from the Playboy and the hour meter reading was 432.8 but the logbook ends with 453.8 and continues on from there at the correct time. The engine was then installed in a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser and again they played with several prop variances until they found what worked.

The one thing that I don’t like about the logs is that the last entry was Dec 3, 1972, and then it starts on Oct 24, 1997, with a different owner and on a different airplane, an Acro Sport II but the hours are consistent which means this engine must have either sat on the Piper or by itself somewhere. The very last entry was Sept 24, 2000, with a run-up and the word ‘good’ beside it and it’s been ‘pickled’ ever since.

By the time you read this I should have word from Alberta Aero Engine and hopefully he won’t be giving me any bad news and I can move forward to placing this engine on my firewall.