Carlson Skunk Works

Weather, a wife with a broken arm, and other issues have kept progress to a minimum since my last post. However, some progress has been made. My focus has been on painting the inspection covers and the vertical stabilizer, which can be done in the basement in short bursts of activity; and on the layout of the instrument panel.

I now have acquired all of the instruments for the panel, so I know the sizes of the holes that need to be made. I also have a cardboard template to work with. The most recent instrument acquisitions are the oil pressure and oil temperature gauges. These were purchased from Amazon during one of their recent incentives. The two gauges are a matched set, are round, and are electrical, so I don’t have to worry about capillary tubes breaking and such.

The oil temperature sensor was not a problem at all to fit to the engine. However, the oil pressure sender unit would not fit into the area where the block is tapped for this purpose.

What to do? I remember seeing an article someplace showing how someone else with a similar problem solved it by using a hose to allow mounting the sending unit a short distance from the engine. So I spent some of my lunch hour the other day to visit the aviation department of my local Orscheln’s Farm & Home store and found just what I was looking for; a replacement hand grease gun hose!

They had one without a protective wire around the base and they had this one which I thought was just right. I like the protective wire/spring guide because I think it will help to keep the hose away from hot engine areas, and it looks cool. The hose has a 1/8 NPT thread on each end which is exactly what is needed to match the hole in the engine. On the other end I got a coupling to go between the hose and the sending unit.

I actually got a couple of the couplings and a close to give me a few options for mounting the sending unit.

What I am thinking is that I will make a piece of steel sheet to bend around the engine mount and have holes for the close to pull things together. I may eliminate the close and one coupling if things look like they will fit OK without them. That part still needs to be figured out.

Slowly, but surely!