Montana Mountain Eagle Refurbish

Montana Eagle
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Alberta Re-Eagle
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Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 2:57 pm

Montana Mountain Eagle Refurbish

Post by Alberta Re-Eagle »

Hey everyone, this is my first post other than my introduction. I'm refurbishing a Montana Mountain Eagle that I bought last November, the plane has flown before and has its airworthiness cert. First flight was in 1999, and by the logs has had a fair amount of daily flights on it for her first years. She had floats installed and it looks to me that it sat for a number of years on the water out in the weather. When I picked her up she was stripped down and all the fabric had been removed by a previous owner. The original engine and instruments were stripped as well. The story I got from the fella I bought her from (from the fella he bought her from) was that the instruments were all certified Piper and were stripped to go back into another Piper.
The engine, an O-360, was pulled by the fella I bought her from and put into his plane. I bought his original O-320 from him (with the log book) and had a new exhaust valve and seat put in and ran up. She works good and dyno-ed out on run-up to 160hp with 78-79/80 on all 4. No metal in the old oil filter and none after run-up, so that's a real good sign and she's been deemed airworthy. So that's one big expense that's taken care of and good to go. And thanks to David, from the forum here, I've borrowed his jig to build my engine mount but more on that later.
Now onto the airframe, ( was gonna put a picture here but Still haven't figured out how)
So I'm gonna leave everyone hanging here until I figure out how to upload pics
See ya on the next post
Time & money, if you have one, the other eludes you
Mountain Eagle
Seasoned Member
Posts: 56
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2013 6:19 pm

Re: Montana Mountain Eagle Refurbish

Post by Mountain Eagle »

Hi Alberta Re-eagle,
Great to see your post here. I have a couple of photos to post of progress on mine. I'll work on that and get you tips on how to upload your photos. In the past, I used photobucket for loading my photos and then linked them here to this forum, but I see some other ways may work now.
Take Care,
David
Alberta Re-Eagle
New Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 2:57 pm

Re: Montana Mountain Eagle Refurbish

Post by Alberta Re-Eagle »

Image There she is ladies and gentlemen, this is the way she looked when I brought her home. Airframe, 2 beautiful D&E 66" riblet wings, an engine, a prop and a some boxes full of treasures. And just my luck, first snow fall of the year. We picked the wings up the next day in another foot of snow so by the time we got them home and into the sea-can, everyone was soaking wet and frozen with no thoughts of taking pictures. Those can come later when I go to install them.
Well I've spent the evening learning how to upload pictures onto photobucket so its time to shut things down for the night,
See ya on the next post
Time & money, if you have one, the other eludes you
Mountain Eagle
Seasoned Member
Posts: 56
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2013 6:19 pm

Re: Montana Mountain Eagle Refurbish

Post by Mountain Eagle »

Great to see you got a picture on here. I found a way to post them directly from this website, but doubt I could explain how to do it! Sometimes I like technology, sometimes I don't. I'll try to dig up the pictures I have of your airplane from years ago!
David
Alberta Re-Eagle
New Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 2:57 pm

Re: Montana Mountain Eagle Refurbish

Post by Alberta Re-Eagle »

Thanks,That sure would be appreciated, it would be nice to see the pictures to determine if some of the parts that I received with the plane actually belong to it.
So, a bit more on the progress, whatever bit and pieces of fabric and glue that was left on airframe have been removed as well as any wood. From sitting in the elements the wood wasn't looking good at all, the plywood inside of the wing roots was starting to peal apart and you could see traces of rust and the paint pealing behind the wood door jambs. Once the jambs were out of the picture you could see the rust starting behind them, I caught them just in time. A quick low pressure blast with 80 grit mini blaster cleaned the area up just like new, now you can't tell that they were ever rusted. The new door jams will be made of gauge plate broke to a 1/4"x1/2"x1/4" Z shaped 90 degree angle. I did the math, they shouldn't weigh much more than a pound per side depending on the thickness. I'll prep the rest of the airframe and paint this spring when the weather isn't 30 below, but before I do, I'm installing an electric jackscrew in the stabilizer. I've got one in there now that I installed but I don't like the setup and from reading through different forums, I could use a bit more travel. The instruction book for the plane cuts off about that chapter and doesn't really say much about the amount of adjustment that is required. I figure its better to have a bit more trim than not enough.
When its time to fit the wings back on, there is going to be a new set of spar to airframe brackets going in like the ones from D&E, just with the mounting hole in the right spot. But more on that later when I get to it, right now I'm building the engine mount and should have more pictures up on that when I post again.
See ya on the next post
Time & money, if you have one, the other eludes you
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