adamsrv10

I got an email that my prop was ready to ship from Florida.. So I wired the final payment and waited about a week before I got a call from the freight company to schedule delivery. The crate arrived unscathed.. and I opened up the front cover to take a look. It’s a thing of beauty.

They really do crate these things well. The prop was mounted to about a 2″ thick piece of plywood with nuts and washers. That was bolted to the crate. Below is a pic of the crate in reference to my garage door. It’s pretty big!

Later that night I set to work removing the prop from the crate and mounting it to the plane. I really wanted to see how it looked and also wanted to see how well the cowl fit and the gap between the aft part of the spinner/spinner backplate and cowl. Using the cowl tool was one of those times where you measure 10 times before you start to cut. I utilized my engine hoist and some straps wrapped around the root of 2 of the blades to lift the prop up while I lined it up and threaded the bolts into the flange. The end result is awesome, and I’m happy with how it looks and came out!

MT had advised to shoot for 1/4″ gap and had said that the spinner dome will overhang the backplate a little bit, so the gap will end up a little less. A bit bigger gap is also recommended for a 3 blade prop for getting the cowl on and off easier.. Of course that’s not as much of a concern for me with the lower half of the cowl split into 2 pieces.

In the end, all the measuring and use of the cowl tool placed where the spinner would be resulted in a consistent gap that I’m pretty happy with after fitting the cowl without the prop in my possession