Crazy or stupid? Oil leak revealed

[N201MKTurbo]

FWIW, the silk threads don’t form the seal, they set the thickness of the sealant. This is according to the Lycoming SI about assembling case half’s. There are three approved sealants. Perfect Seal POB 4, loctite 515, and one other I don’t remember.

Lycoming still uses POB 4 at the factory. It is a sealant from the Stone Age. 
 

Some people were putting silk threads around the through bolts. This will cause your engine to self destruct in short order.

[N201MKTurbo]

50 minutes ago, cliffy said:

It was normal to put large drip pans underneath SR 71s as they were designed to leak They expanded so much with heat at altitude from air friction that they grew IIRC about 12 inches longer in fast flight. The fuel was in fact a special blend 'only used in the SRs

The "white" tires were actually silver in color molded into the tire I presume for heat rejection

If you have never seen it go look up the utube of the LA Speed Story  Find the full length version He has an American flag shirt on in the video. 

About 15 years ago, a friend and I went to the Seattle Museum of Flight. It was a random weekday. We walked by their auditorium and it was almost full, so we went in and sat down. It was a reunion of anybody who had ever flown or worked on SR71s. It was mentioned that every SR71 pilot that was alive was there that day. Everybody got up and told stories. It was fascinating. We stayed there for over 8 hours. It wasn’t a public event, but it wasn’t closed either. At the breaks people were asking us what we did. We just said we were lucky enough to wander by. They told everything in great detail. They were holding nothing back. The enemy would have had a field day if they had that info back in the day. I wish I would have recorded it.

[Ragsf15e]

1 hour ago, cliffy said:

It was normal to put large drip pans underneath SR 71s as they were designed to leak They expanded so much with heat at altitude from air friction that they grew IIRC about 12 inches longer in fast flight. The fuel was in fact a special blend 'only used in the SRs

The "white" tires were actually silver in color molded into the tire I presume for heat rejection

If you have never seen it go look up the utube of the LA Speed Story  Find the full length version He has an American flag shirt on in the video. 

Had to have special KC-135s too so they could be loaded with the special fuel, but not mix it with their own.  KC-135Q/T.  Normally KC-135s can use/transfer almost all their fuel interchangeably, but these ones kept two types separate.

[cliffy]

My best friend (still alive) was a crew chief on a 135Q/T tanking SRs during the hostilities 

As noted they did not intermix fuels in that airplane. 

Had one SR drop off the hook go below the 135 Light the burners and pull up in front thereby causing such a wake that the 135 hit that it cracked the fuselage keel beam of the 135!

[N201MKTurbo]

30 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

Had to have special KC-135s too so they could be loaded with the special fuel, but not mix it with their own.  KC-135Q/T.  Normally KC-135s can use/transfer almost all their fuel interchangeably, but these ones kept two types separate.

I have done quite a bit of work with JP10 and thought it was pretty fancy stuff. I just read about JP7, it is a lot more complex than JP10. JP10 is designed to have an extremely long shelf life and more energy content than standard jet fuel. JP7 has four special requirements, low vapor pressure, high boiling point, high luminosity and a low IR signature. While JP10 is almost all a pure chemical, JP7 is a mixture of quite a few chemicals. Fun Fact Jimmy Doolittle was the executive in charge of the development effort.

[cliffy]

 

SR fuel specs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-7

Needs TEB to light off  (hypergolic liquids that violently ignite on contact)

Edited July 3, 2022 by cliffy
add

[Skates97]

2 hours ago, cliffy said:

It was normal to put large drip pans underneath SR 71s as they were designed to leak They expanded so much with heat at altitude from air friction that they grew IIRC about 12 inches longer in fast flight. The fuel was in fact a special blend 'only used in the SRs

The "white" tires were actually silver in color molded into the tire I presume for heat rejection

If you have never seen it go look up the utube of the LA Speed Story  Find the full length version He has an American flag shirt on in the video. 

Worth the time to watch, I've watched it more than once over the years. 

 

[cliffy]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Some people were putting silk threads around the through bolts. This will cause your engine to self destruct in short order.

YEP ! Just follow the directions in the overhaul manual Nothing more nothing less for a perfect overhaul. 

[BDPetersen]

3 hours ago, cliffy said:

But once you learn  all the intricacies of Mooney maintenance it ain't that bad after all!   :-)  Just different. 

Sure you can't stand behind the engine like you can in a 172 but it can be worked on anyway. 

If it was easy everyone would do it. We're an exclusive club of those who work on Mooneys. Anybody can work on Cessna's :-) (looking down nose)

Not my first rodeo by several decades, but experience doesn’t always compensate for time and age. Besides, I like to whine.

[Browncbr1]

red honey flame master (iirc 3306) is pretty good for sealing leaking case halves.  easy and nothing to mix and not quite as ugly as other methods..  if it doesn't solve it, it's probably because the metal wasn't completely clean or you can mix up some PRC to goop on.  I also use torque seal on all hardware to easily see if anything has backed off.