The engine swap went very fast! there was really no other way, we did it in my Wifes side of the garage!
I replaced the plywood spacer with a 1/4" sheet of aluminum to help stiffen things up and then installed four vibration isolators. This was money well spent and the time would have been better spent doing this in the first place. This really quieted it things down and helped smooth things out.
A clean hover and a sunny day was the opportunity I had been waiting for to put the freshly repaired thrust prop back on and apply the custom vinyl graphics I ordered for the craft name! I also cut two inspection hatches in the nose and relocated the battery up there to improve the balance front to back. The red and white stripes on the prop cre there to cover up the patch job.
On the left we have just given her a good spring scrubbin and have her tilted up on the trailer to inspect the lift fan and mounting hub. This is a two place sno-mo traler that has two feet of deck space added in the front making it a three place. Though not a dry launcher this works very well for hover maintenance and the balance ended up about perfect.
Let's go hovering!
To the right we have removed the old lift engine and starting to make the new mounting plate.
The steel plate on the right side along the wood engine support is a heat sheild I made from a plate cover from an water heater, without this sheild the hot gasses from the exhaust would burn clear through the wood support in fairly short order.
Hooking up a throttle linkage to bypass the governor proved to be the challange in this project. I ended up making a bracket out of aluminum to hold the cable end out from the engine on the correct side, this is not a problem on the older style engines.
The Intek set in place and we're ready to bolt her down and wire it up!
Here we have yanked the old engine and ruffed in a hole in the back of the canopy for a pull start access.
Here are both the new and the old 10hp engines together on the bench with the rest of the herd. The 5hp Quantum lift engine is on the right, I chose to use the old black and red cover due to my very good taste!
I also took this opportunity to do some things on the interior like sand and paint the places I thought I was going to cover with something later, almost anything that adds weight is bad!
The torque tube cover behind the seat should have been tall and narrow. I have had a few people try and step on this one! The plush padded seat weighs in at 5 lbs. and is worth every pound.
To the left the engine is bolted to the mounting plate and the lift fan is coupled to the crankshaft. I have centered the unit in the duct and clamped the mounting plate in place and will now drill through the original mounting holes into the plate from below and bolt it down.
I purchased a new Briggs Intek 10hp to replace the old L head 10hp currently on the craft. The new engine is about 14 pounds lighter and boasts both electric and recoil start. The addition of the recoil start will allow me to use a smaller battery which should take another 7lbs off the gross weight of the craft bringing it to around 366 lbs. ready to run. I plan to build a new canopy and windshield frame next summer replacing all emt with aluminum tubing, taking another 3 or 4 lbs more off of her. I also purchased a new lift engine but it's just the same as the old one, so no savings there. I did make a new mounting plate for it which cost me about a pound and a half though.
