Monday again, here we go!

No Monday morning blues, on with the job.
Peter and Fred had worked on Sunday to progress the Mk. XVIII, timing the valves and this morning continued with checking the magneto timing. The propeller pitch change mechanism was removed and the piston seals were cleaned and put back on.
Late afternoon it was time to run the engine. All was well with the single ignition check, 50 rpm drop both sides. The honing of the cylinder bores and replacement of the piston rings on number five and six cylinders had fixed the smoking exhaust.
No luck with the propeller operation, have to dig deeper tomorrow, thinking caps on tonight. Fingers crossed it is not the Constant Speed Unit drive from the engine. That would mean engine out and pulled apart just to change a small Woodruff key the size of your thumb nail. I remember doing the same job on G-FIRE some twenty odd years ago, not nice.

Tomorrow Dave and Roy will roll out the Gladiator for more functionals, a generator check this time. If that goes well all we need is the paperwork.