Jason and Jonie Mellinger Connecting You to Tribal Missions As soon as we returned from Alaska I had to hit the hanger hard. The Cherokee 140 was becoming a “hanger queen” (a term we use to describe an aircraft that never leaves the hanger) and we already had two or three of those! While I was waiting for a few parts still, I cleaned and painted individual parts of the engine. Not only are we going for a reliable, airworthy engine, but one that looks good as well. It was one of my most enjoyable jobs as I was able to shut th
e doors to my engine rebuilding/wash room, and listen to the series I’ve been studying on David, A Man of Passion and Destiny. What an enjoyable time that I had there, and was quite sad to get to the end of my project. But the job wasn’t over with the rebuild, I had to install it on the airplane, again making sure the wires, hoses and cables were routed and secured neatly. Repairing and painting baffles used to direct cooling air over the cylinders, and building new exhaust parts. I usually spend 10-12 hours a day at the hanger, something that’s easy to do when there’s no kids to take care of and the wife is happy to come down and work on the computer, write thank you notes, or work on a knitting project while I work. Once all the correct parts arrived and after an entire week, it was time to start it up.
Before you start up an engine you need to turn it over with the battery until there’s oil pressure on the gauge. By the time we got pressure and were ready to start for real, the battery didn’t have enough juice to turn over the engine, so our shop manager had to turn the prop by hand to get it to start up. And it started right up and ran beautifully, smooth as a… really smooth thing. It was a thing of beauty, and the owner was very pleased with the end result!
