My Aztec's first Annual

Louis,
you mentioned that your vacuum pumps seemed original. Our Aztec is in the
shop right now having cooling shrouds installed on the vacuum pumps. Many
of the "experts" or old time Aztec owners I've talked with advise this due
to the high temps under our tight cowls. The shrouds really aren't much,
$50 each, and not very complicated, basically a plastic 3/4 donut that fits
over the vacuum pump and a scat tube runs ram air from the left/rear baffle
to the shroud, similar to the blast tubes that cool the mags. The kits are
made by RAPCO and available from Wag Aero. The STC that RAPCO has with the
kit doesn't cover Aztecs so we had to get the FAA to do a field approval
once we submitted a drawing. It didn't take much time for the install and
combining the Aztec drawing with the RAPCO instructions made the field
approval go smoothly. Because it's an alteration to the baffle or cooling
system, it's considered a "major" alteration and needs a 337 and the FAA's
blessing.

Hopefully it will extend the life of our pumps.

Jim

"Louis L. Perley III" wrote in message
...
Well, I met with the mechanics yesterday and we went through the
complete squawk sheet. I've been dropping by almost everyday just to
get
updates and looks at things while it's all opened up, so there weren't
any
last-minute surprises. One of the primary things to get through were
the
logs, which were in a bit of disarray.

You may want to sit down with you significant other for a day and work
on
getting your logs in order just incase you need to use another IA in the
future. .


I'm generally pretty good with this, I go through my logs on the 152 at
least yearly myself to refresh my memory of what's in there, etc. Since I
only recently bought out the other shareholders, I didn't have the logs in
my control until a couple of weeks ago.

The airplane has spent quite a bit of
time in Canada, so a large portion of the logs are in French.
Thankfully
the
AD numbers and such are still the same so one can muddle through on
most
things.

Find a translator/interrupter to convert it in to English have then
notarized so your A&P IA can actually read what it says may be good for
the
future value of your aircraft. If I was a buyer I would want to see
English
log's notarized from a translator/interrupter unless I know the
language.


Interesting thought. Never would have considered such a thing, but it
makes
sense. Too bad I'd not considered this a week ago, as one of my co-workers
who is fluent in French just moved back to Nice, France.

The batteries won't hold a charge for very long so I'll be
replacing
those.

Wise Choice!


I need Gill G-35 batteries, but they also list a G-35N and a G-35S, do the
letters mean anything inportant? The prices are higher for the lettered
parts.

The bolt for the Right alternator was found in the bottom of the cowl
(this was one of the things that had been replaced while the plane
sat,
so
that one was just weird, and I think that the bolt is safety wired,
but
I
guess it hadn't been).

Ok, now what the deal with people not safety tying bolts my starter
bolts
on
my C-150 were not safety tied and discoverd not to be this annual


I don't know but it does make me wonder what other things might have been
overlooked. I'm having them be very thorough on this inspection/annual.
We're redoing some of the safety wire on some pieces because it just
doesn't
look like it's done right, like one some of the control turnbuckles.


O-rings are a consumable part very inexpensive


Never been happier when I was being told "It's just a leak"

Have you thought of fixing the discrepancy's yourself while being
supervised? can save you a bundle in labor costs!


The main difficulty is time. I might take a crack at doing some of the
basic
things while they work on the more complex issues/repairs. I enjoy
learning
about how all this stuff is put together and how it works. Who knows,
maybe
knowing stuff like this will save my bacon one day if I get stranded
somewhere.

--
Louis L. Perley III
N46000 - C152
N370 - PA-23-250




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If you do this be sure you find a translator with aviation experience.
Knowledge of specialized terminology is essential to accurate translation.

Rob


...
The airplane has spent quite a bit of
time in Canada, so a large portion of the logs are in French.
Thankfully the
AD numbers and such are still the same so one can muddle through on
most things.

Find a translator/interrupter to convert it in to English have then
notarized so your A&P IA can actually read what it says may be good
for the
future value of your aircraft. If I was a buyer I would want to see
English
log's notarized from a translator/interrupter unless I know the
language.


Interesting thought. Never would have considered such a thing, but it
makes sense. Too bad I'd not considered this a week ago, as one of my
co-workers who is fluent in French just moved back to Nice, France.
...