One of the things I’ve been concerned about is that the new Rotax 912 and new engine mount have meant that the coolant tubes run is too close to the engine mount bolts and the coolant exit pipes (that leave the water pump).need to angle slightly to ensure the coolant rubber tube misses these

A bit of research has identified how these pipes can be loosened and angled

“Adjusting Coolant Inlet Elbow

by John Smutny in 912 / 914 Technical Questions 3 years ago

Still struggling with the cooling system on a Kitfox IV w/ 912ULS.

In order to get the final hose installed from cylinder 4 to the water pump, I need to adjust 4’s cooling inlet fitting by about 10 degrees so it’s not pointing directly at the engine mount.  There’s no way to install a hose without a kink in it otherwise. (Old hose had significant kink.)

Looking through the MM, I don’t see any text about removing or adjusting those fittings.  There is a star next to them (page 336), but I find no correlating star in the text.

Going back a few pages to the water pump disassembly and reassembly, the same part numbers can be removed after heating to 180 degree F cleaned and re-assembled with a minimum of 5 turns and Loctite 243.

Is the procedure the same for the cylinder mounted elbows as the water pump?  Am I missing something in the MM text?”

Seeing a LinkedIn colleague post something about the early days of the Schneider trophyseaplane races reminded me of an amazing 2nd visit, my first being over 30 years ago, to the beautiful museum just N of Rome at Lake Bracciano

Years ago, when I first visited as a 20 something youngster, these were kept in a dark old wooden shed, covered in dust and dirt

Now, with a state of the art building and polished floor, they are very much looked after

The restore continues at a pace that is slower than I would ideally like ..

There are quite a lot of ‘moving parts’ in this project and it’s nit just a case of ‘go out and buy sonething’

The engine is in .. but may need to come out again so we can see if it’s possible to angle one of the rear cooling pipes to make the pipe feed miss the mounting brackets … getting the engine in ..with all it’s rubbers and multiple angled brackets and bolts was a bit trickier than the ‘out in 30 mins’ Jabiru !

Bob, at Priory, suggested leaving the engine in its mount and simply removing the 4 mounting bracket bolts from the bulkhead .. way easier

The repaired wing is now hanging in my garage at home to allow final finish and prep for recovering

The upper tank edge ribs are in place and capping Beech strips going in which has meant I can now measure the balsa rear trailing edge. This will then allow the ply Oratex landing plates to be fitted and the running of the fuel line from the top tank downwards.

At the same time, I’ve had Will helping review what is the best way to repair or replace the scuffed Oratex on the tail feathers.

He decided that removing back to a rib line was best bet, which means a bit of cleaning up, glue application will give me a good strong termination point for the small repair above (rudder) and outer edge (elevator). Ironically, both these were scuffed NOT in the crash but in the claim lift to turn her back over from upside down

The elevator trim tab is almost complete and just needs the hinge shaping around the tube-rib

Finally, the change of some aileron mount end brackets- which was spotted by the factory, will be completed in the next few days.

My very dear friend Christophe who lives just South of Paris has been a great help !

I have been working closely with him to help contact possible sources in France who have several Rangers with conversions to Rotax 912s and so have exhausts and cowls and cooling specs that could really help progress…