Thorp Air Command - T18.net

Hello everyone;


Last November I purchased N2751, a T18 with an O360. On the flight home the cam went flat. The engine has been at Corona Engine since then. I hope to be flying again soon.

I do have one question I

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Correct

<1> AN5-16A
<2> AN4-22A

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Lee Walton
Houston, TX
N51863,N118LW
KEFD

Thanks for the info leewwalton! Heard from the engine shop today that the case is back.
Here's a pic of my T-18:

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Welcome aboard, Brent. A man of your talents will be a great asset to this group! A quick review of our past threads will show that we have been in need of many items our past vendors produced but are no longer in business. Examples are: aluminum fuel tanks, spinners, landing gear, rod type tail wheel conversion hardware to name a few.

Hope you get your engine back soon.

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Bob Highley
N711SH
SN 835
KLAL

Hey thanks. Any of those parts is not a problem. I work a lot in chromoly tubing and work closely on a lot of projects with a local heat treater, so landing gear is no problem. We also do a lot of aluminum work, TiG welding, tanks, and hand-formed cowlings and wheel pants is not a problem.

I'm curious about spinners, there are no off-the-shelf spinners? If there's a need for spinners I could look into getting something made up.

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The Thorp spinner for the original cowling was 12 3/4" in diameter. They were available from Ken Brock Mfg which has since gone out of buisiness. I really think he got them from Hartzell, but my contacts at Hartzell are unable to confirm that. There are none that I have been able to find that match John Thorp's drawing.

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Bob Highley
N711SH
SN 835
KLAL

Lee Walton makes an excellent Carbon Fiber copy for a good price.

Bob,

When I was at Brock's shop a few years back, just after Ken died, I talked with the tall lanky gentleman(Eric?), who worked in the machine shop, about spinners. He told me that they had the spinners spun somewhere nearby in the Orange County area and then Brock Manufacturing would set the spinner up with the backing plate, drill holes, install nut plates, etc. Once in a while they would get a batch of bum spinners with a lot of spinning marks.

My brother ended up buying a new constant speed spinner that Ken had set up with flush screws. He still has it on the shelf. They weren't making those for customers because they could not be sure there would be no cracking.

I would be curious to know what happened to Ken's project T-18. Bruce and I drove over to Maria's house to take a look at it since it was for sale. It was a feature rich T-18 that would not win any light weight awards, but there was a lot of great metal work to behold.

Lou,
I live in Redlands (a stone's throw from your shop). I'll be looking you up soon to see if you can help me with a couple of metal projects on my S-18. Where is your Thorp based? Looks like George Leider's T-18 - very nice!

Byron

BN-3 Spinner for Lycomings from Spruce. 0-360, I got the complete kit. It is actually a spinner from ACS in Lake Haveusu, AZ. You can go to their web site. They sell them to Spruce. As with most of these off the shelf spinners they will probably have some tooling marks and need to be polished out. Mine did. The BN-3 was a close to the Thorp spinner (Dia. and length) as I could get. Very happy so far.

RB

Byron,
my Thorp's hangared over here in San Bernardino. I believe Drew's mentioned you, we should definitely get together. If you're ever killing time out at the airport, give me a call (shop number 909-864-4346).

I bought my Thorp from George Coulter out of Eugene Oregon.
I believe Brent Schultz may have one of Ken Brooks T-18

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Lou,
I will definitely call you. I believe Mike Archer in Porterville purchased the remaining inventory and tooling from Maria Brock, so that will probably not be an option. Mike sells spinners made from his die, but unfortunately does not set them up the way Brock did.

Thanks for the response. Will talk with you soon.
Byronj

Lou - I have to ask - what indications did you experience telling you the cam went flat - engine just start barking and running ruff?

Well let me tell you the whole story. The engine was overhauled in 76 when the t 18 was built but it has only accrued 800 hours. When I bought it, I checked compression, it was good. I looked for case fretting, no signs there. I measured valve lift and it checked ok as well.
I got two hours check out with the owner, a CFI and then I flew it from Eugene to Fox field in 4

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Thanks Lou - stuff like that helps a lot for those of us who have or will purchase used aircraft - having said that, it sounds like you did a reasonable pre-buy inspection and other than pulling parts off, there was really no way to tell that was going to happen. I would never have known to check valve lift.

Stopped by the engine shop Monday, the 9:1 pistons are in the cylinders, the case is painted. I might have my engine back by the weekend. Oh boy, oh boy!

Just in time for it

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