lperagallo
10-05-2006, 09:21 PM
I just finished rebuilding after I crashed on a botched auto when my engine quit. I thought the plug fouled out. It's only got a gallon and a half through it and I've been running rich with alot of oil. So after all my repairs from my botched auto, I put a new plug in, opened up the needles to 1 1/2 turns thinking they might be too lean and start the engine. Started in three pulls but was running rich. I spooled it up anyway to warm up the engine and as it was coming up to speed at zero pitch the engine quit. Strange I thought to myself. One pull and the engine was running fine. Spool it up and runs about two minutes then it quits again. One pull later it's running fine, but now I suspect that I am going into failsafe! I have the antenna down in my TX, so I pull it up and walk around. It seems OK. Engine is running fine. Then I see it go into failsafe, which kills the engine. It starts right up again. I check the tail and it's way out so I shut down and make adjustments on the blades. Three times later the tail looks pretty good. I also lean the engine a bit and it runs fine. I think the engine is just way to rich and vibration is causing the problem. As I go over everything again I find a loose bolt and nut on the tail boom support. I think that could also be causing the glitch. I think I probably found everything as the engine runs over five minutes just below lift off speed. I shut down and decide I'm all set. I go off to the garage and as I am fitting the canopy back on the wire at the base of the antenna falls out in my hand. Well I guess I know what was causing it to go into failsafe.
This was just dumb luck because I figured the loose bolt and rich condition caused enough vibration to cause a glitch. I figured once at the field on saturday I'd lean it out a bit and the vibration would be less and I'd be fine. I had another antenna laying around so I installed it and I hope I now know the problem.
In failsafe, I have the throttle going to the point of killing the engine. Do all of you do that, or do you set it to idle or a point just above that? While I think it's safe to do, It sure makes me a bit concerned that since I can't auto well (or at all for that matter), maybe I should just come to idle, that way I wouldn't lose all my head speed so fast. But I guess that won't matter anyway since I don't have any control over anything else anyway.
Well I guess I'll be checking that wire every flight.
This was just dumb luck because I figured the loose bolt and rich condition caused enough vibration to cause a glitch. I figured once at the field on saturday I'd lean it out a bit and the vibration would be less and I'd be fine. I had another antenna laying around so I installed it and I hope I now know the problem.
In failsafe, I have the throttle going to the point of killing the engine. Do all of you do that, or do you set it to idle or a point just above that? While I think it's safe to do, It sure makes me a bit concerned that since I can't auto well (or at all for that matter), maybe I should just come to idle, that way I wouldn't lose all my head speed so fast. But I guess that won't matter anyway since I don't have any control over anything else anyway.
Well I guess I'll be checking that wire every flight.