November 25th

The DRZ hadn't hydrolocked again, so I put the rest of the fuel in the gas tank and left it to see if I've finally fixed the problem.

Chris had suggested going flying, so we threw everything in the van and headed to Lincoln, where the visibility was bugger all due to low clouds.  Chris had taken off from Placerville, hoping it would get better, but it didn't, so he went to Auburn to wait for a bit.  I finished up a bit of safety wiring, then got the plane out and warmed it up so I could start running in the new pre-rotator belts.  Imagine me sitting in front of the hangar running the rotor up and down for 15 minutes or so.  When I wasn't getting the bendix engaging any more, I stopped the engine and texted Chris to say it was starting to brighten up.  He left Auburn, and we waxed the rotors while waiting, but he gave up as the low cloud we'd been seeing was heading towards him.  We took the plane out for a couple of circuits, and the first one had the bendix engaging a bit, but the second one was much better.  We were pretty close to clouds, so we stopped and put the plane away and headed to lunch.  Of course it was glorious when we left the restaurant, but headed home.

The DRZ doesn't seem to be hydrolocked again yet.  I'm still leery about draining the oil and putting everything back together just yet, but this does seem promising.

November 24th

I fought and struggled and got the carb back in the DRZ, and with Vic's help put the rear subframe back on (I'd unbolted it to get more space for the carb, but it didn't help at all).  We got the gas out of the engine, and left it with a little gas to see if that's fixed the problem.

November 23rd

I took a look at the carb for the DRZ, and discovered I can blow through the new float valve.  I can't blow through the old float valve, so I replaced the dried out O ring with a Viton one, and put it all back together.

November 22nd

Today was Thanksgiving.  We did our usual turkey dinner, and Jen came over in the evening for pie.

November 20th

I spoke to Randy about the plane's annual again, and there are still a couple of things he needs to do (gearbox lash and teeter bolt runout), but he's talking about deferring those (as it's an Experimental, it's not required to do everything).  I'm hoping I can grab Ken soon and do them just to get them off my list of things to do.  It sounds like the paperwork is all being done (but I have to sign the stuff I did) and I'm hoping it'll be reasonable weather on Friday so I can meet him and get that all finished up.  I'm also hoping to start wearing in the new pre-rotator belts, so that'll probably mean flying :o)

November 19th

I spoke to Randy, and the annual is going fine.  Not done yet, but he had a couple of questions that I (hopefully) answered.  He was having problems getting the spark plugs out for the compression test, so I pointed him to the spark plug socket I have in my toolbox, and that was all solved.

November 18th

As I couldn't get anything done at the airport, I spent the day cleaning the hot tub and firing that up for the winter.  I even got the water tested.