Oil Change and New Rapco Pump

A short flight on tap today from Ocean City to Elkton Maryland for scheduled service. I filed last night just in case Claremont was covered by a layer, been there done that drill before.

Today was different, it was the first time I had to uncover the plane in many years. With the start of taxiway construction I was now banished to the tie downs. It's a process; cover, tail cover, nose plugs, pitot cover, preflight outdoors and worst of all nowhere to park. I did manage to tuck my SUV inside the fence line, just beyond the self serve pumps, but I still had to walk back and forth, I am so spoiled.

I picked up the weather and launched on runway two-zero. I planned on cruising at 4000' and contacting Dover approach to pick up my clearance. I was maybe twenty miles south of the Waterloo VOR (ATR) and made contact. I was cleared to 58M direct DuPont (DQO) then direct, climb and maintain 5000'. Easy peasy, chug and plug, I'm on my way.

Busy north of Dover

Dover handed me off to Philly well before the typical north of the Smyrna VOR (ENO). Philly was busy so I patiently waited and they called me, I hate that. I made the course and altitude deviations as requested and advised I had the weather. Philly gave me one traffic call out at my 12 o'clock and below me, I responded looking for traffic. I had the aircraft on ADS-B, it was the Delaware State Police helicopter N2SP.

Shortly after reaching the new assigned altitude I canceled and switched over to monitor any traffic for 58M. I made a nice landing and taxied for the shop. Roger was there to marshal me in and I shut down right in front of the shop doors.

Stan was going to do my oil change and he did a great job tracking down my leak. I thought it might be coming from the right mag but it was above that. The vac pump seemed to be full of oil and with the help of a small dental mirror we could see it dripping from the pump.

Once the unit was removed we found the pressed oil seal that sits inside the adapter assembly [2] (to the engine) had a bad seal. Since my Airborne pump has 700 hours and I need to be able to fly IFR on the Boston trip, I decided to immediately replace the pump. With a pump change it was decided to change the filters too, keeping it all clean.

The Old

Tired Airborne Pump pictures

The New

New Rapco pump

Once the pump was hung the filter soon followed along with seven quarts of Aeroshell 15W50. Everything looked good so we pushed 08Romeo out to the parking area in front of the shop for a run up and leak test. I let the oil warm up then advanced from 1000 RPM through 2200 RPM. Pressure looked great, the temps came up and the vacuum was steady between 5-6 depending on the rpms.