RV-8 and the 2026 Condition Inspection, The Big Finish!

This two month saga began here. There is a link at the bottom each page to the next post in the series.

5/22/26 The big day finally arrived, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a WHOOPEEE! On Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 2:28 PM PDT, I finally got the long awaited notification that my propeller and governor were complete and ready for pick up. I used A.C. Propeller Service, inc. in Seattle for my propeller. Since they no longer do Woodward governors, which, of course, is what I have, they sent it to Southwest Aero in Tukwila. The guy that runs Southwest Aero used to work at A.C. Propeller, so they have a history.

In both cases, the service I received was exactly what was promised. I was told I would have my prop in 6-8 weeks and it was eight weeks to the day when I picked it up. It was also at the amount that was quoted.

The only down side to this is that it meant that I would have to drive down to Seattle and back on the Friday before a holiday weekend. I dreaded this but resigned myself to it taking the better part of the day. I wanted to leave early(ish) in hopes of getting back before the real getaway traffic started. I left about 9:40 and it was just under an hour to get down there and just over an hour to get back. I got back right at noon.

The good news was that this got me there early enough to take a crack at getting the prop on by myself. Carl was going to be giving a ride to a friend of his nephew and wasn't planning to stop by on Saturday, but if I wanted help on Friday he would come over. Just because I like to do things on my own, I wanted to at least take a stab at it before I caved and asked for help.

It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be.

The prop weighs about 50-60 lbs. When I was younger, I probably could have just wrestled it up there myself, but not now. I have finally taken the advice that my Dad has given me most of my life, "let the tool do the work". That works best, of course, when you have the correct tool for the job. That is why we buy so many tools. Someday each one will be just what the doctor ordered. In this case, the "proper" tool was an engine hoist.

A tool to every purpose under heaven, to paraphrase The Byrds.

I find it interesting that, as mentioned earlier, the prop weighs 50-60 lbs, but the Hartzell manual tells you to use a hoist rated at a minimum of 800 lbs. I'm pretty sure this qualifies.

The spreader bar was originally built to lift a Sportsman to change gear configurations between tail dragger, tricycle, and/or floats. I figured it would work for a prop, and it did. The straps are from Harbor Freight, but they are rated at 100 lbs, each.

It might have been slightly easier with another person as once I got it lifted into position, it took a little bit of wrestling to get it positioned so that all six bolts were aligned with their respective holes. The bolts seem really long and it takes a long time to get them in (or out) as each one can only be turned about 1 turn at a time before it binds and you have to move on the the others.

In time, I got all of the bolts snugged up. I didn't torque them just yet because I wanted to make sure that I had the flywheel correctly oriented. With the #1 cylinder at Top Dead Center (TDC), the "TC" mark on the flywheel should line up with the mark on the starter. It did.

That made for a really good day, so I called it.

5-23-26 The two remaining tasks that have me the most concerned are installing the governor and getting the forward spinner bulkhead modified to fit the spinner. Because I really want to get everything back together, I started with the governor. The concern here is getting the bracket for the control cable mounted to the governor. There are three screws that hold it in that have to be safety wired. There is no room behind the unit to do that with it in place, so I had to get that installed before mounting it to the engine.

This is who did the overhaul.

In order to do that, I had to pretty much just have the thing hanging by the cable while I try to get the screws in.

Just hangin' out.

Things had been going pretty well up until now, so I knew I was due for a change. That change came when installing the three screws that hold the bracket in place. I just started with the one closest to me, then the middle, then the farthest away. The first two were no problem, but the last one wouldn't go in at all. Not even close. Ruh-Roh Reorge, what did I do wrong? Did I use the wrong holes? Was it in the wrong orientation? Did something get put back together differently?

As it turned out, and as is often the case, it matters what order one puts the screws in. The order that I tried first didn't work, so I started with the farthest away, also the hardest because it is behind the adjustment arm. With that one in and started, I went back to the first one. It was a little hard to get started, but it went in without stripping anything. Then the middle one just dropped in. From there it wasn't too hard to get them tightened up.

The next simple step was to safety wire the four screws in pairs. What the shop used on them was .025" stainless safety wire. Between my Dad and I we have about 20 lbs of safety wire (it comes in 1 lb spools). We had some .020", a LOT of .032: (this is the most commonly used size), and a few rolls of .041", but I could find no .025".

I debated about holding off until I could get some .025, but I decided that .020" is really close, and it is kind of a belt and braces kind of thing. They get safety wire, but they also have split lock washers under the heads of the screws. Since I was taking out the screws, and the washers had already been shmushed (technical term) once, and that they are only supposed to be used once, I put new washers on them. Between the lock washers and the wire, I don't think that .005" will be critical. Famous last words. It is in a place that I can look at each time I have the bottom cowl off, and I will, for a while at least.

Guess which two sets of screws I safetied.

Once that was done, the next simple step was to mount the thing on the adapter. It was a little bit difficult as it didn't quite want to line up to all four studs at the same time. But after a few moments I held my face just right and it slipped right on. I also got the new gasket, supplied with the overhauled unit, in the correct orientation.

In place, but with nothing tight.

Before I tightened the mounting nuts and put a cotter pin in the bolt holding the cable to the actuating arm, I wanted to make sure that the cable would move through its whole range of motion with no binding while hitting both stops. It did. From there it was just a simple matter of tightening the nuts and adding the cotter pin.

Everything tight and safetied.

From this point, it was largely a matter of finishing up the Firewall Forward section of my Condition Inspection checklist. First was to check the ignition timing. I have the LASAR system which works a little bit different than regular mags. For starters, you begin by setting the unit to TDC and then when the prop is backed off, you should be at your base timing point (25 deg.). As long as that works, it is a quick and easy test. Fortunately, it worked and they are right on.

From there I took the time to borescope the cylinders, mainly to check on valve health, mainly the exhaust valves, but also to look at all of the cylinder than you can see looking for any sign of problems. Fortunately, I didn't find any.

Valves in cylinder #3, typical of the condition of all of the valves.

After that, I put the cleaned, rotated top spark plugs back in and attached the ignition leads. I also put clean oil into the sump along with a pint of Avblend. About all that is left is to put the right wheel pant back on, torque and safety the prop bolts and figure out the front spinner bulkhead. I should have it all back together and ready to run just in time for the rain to return.

5/24/25 I got the right wheel pant on and moved to torquing the bolts on the prop. The manual calls for 60-70 ft. lbs, which equates to 720-840 in. lbs. I chose to split the difference and torqued them to 800 in. lbs. Though the manual doesn't specify this that I saw, an old rule of thumb for something like this is not too go right to the end torque all at once, but to get to it gradually in increments. I chose, for no particular reason, to start at 300 in. lbs. then do 400, 500, 600 and then the final 800 in. lbs. It worked well and didn't take too long.

The next simple step was to safety wire those bolts. Actually, it isn't really a bolt, it is a stud that has a nut held on to it with a roll pin. The reason they can't use a bolt is that there isn't room to get one long enough into the hole.

The reason that it is so difficult to safety these fasteners is that there is no room to get a tool in there properly. There is barely room to get a hand in there. On the first pair of bolts, it took me 4 tires to get it done in a manner that I could live with. It wasn't the best I have seen, but it will do the job. The other two pairs went a little easier, but not much. The whole process took over an hour.

At least that's done.

The yellow that you see in the photo above is heat shrink around the wire. That is to protect the hub from being rubbed or scratched by the wire. It is probably not necessary, and there wasn't any on there for the past 25 years and there were no marks on the hub when I removed the old wire, but it seemed like a good idea.

To be concluded.