A little progress XL H-58

[Chuck in Indiana]

Better it broke there than the crankcase...
Does it start 0 BTDC?  Maybe a timing malfunction.

Yes, it sounds like timing, but that is (magically) controlled by the coil pack. Certainly the sensors haven't moved. I received a post on the Verner facebook page from some guy named Verner  that said my battery is weak, and what is my address so he can send me a new ring gear. (!) I figured I may as well go for it and said how about the casting? 
I'm not holding my breath,though.
I set the casting up in my cnc mill, and indicated the mount holes today. I'll weld it up, and drill the hole on location for a spare *assuming* I get one from Verner. I'll make a cad drawing of the ring gear, weld it and hopefully cut the teeth. If not, maybe I could get my water jet guy to make one out of 4130.
In the mean time, I'll make a spacer to take the place of the ring gear and prop that bad boy.
It'll be a pain, but I can get my wife to run the enrichener and throttle while I prop it. A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do..

[Dan_]

Can't keep a good man "down"...

[Chuck in Indiana]

We've been propping without issue until Thursday morning. No start. Hmmm. Started trouble shooting, and the ignition is dead. (!!) Probably a good thing this didn't happen while I was flying over the forest where I had no place to land.  No, I don't do that..  I haven't checked any farther yet, but the ignition unit is grounded out somewhere..
Here you can see I have battery voltage with the ground wires unhooked from the battery..

Since I haven't heard from Verner on the broken starter issue, I've been starting (no pun intended)  to see if I can fix it.
Welded up the casting and made a cad drawing of the ring gear.

Brother in Law Bob retired as the engineer for starters at Delco Remy. He came over and said it wasn't a kick back.. it was incorrect alignment. It has what they call "milling" where the pinion wasn't entering properly. I did a fair amount of cad work and bored the mount holes in what I thought should be the correct location.

Bob says this is just right..

I've made a fixture to hold the ring gear on the cnc mill table, so now (ahem)all I have to do is grind off the bad teeth.. there are many..weld the ring gear and cut new teeth on the mill.
Maybe a new ring gear will show up from the Czech Republic and I can use it as a spare.
I know I'm doing this for "something to do"  But I really didn't expect powerplant issues. 
We are headed out to Denver to watch a week of granddaughter's international softball tournament, so I really don't have time to troubleshoot the ignition until I get back..but I doubt there is anything I can fix. We'll see.

[jrbirdman47]

When you changed the position of the upper mounting hole of the starter bracket did that place the axis of the starter gear closer to or further away from the ring gear? Nice pic of the proper engagement. I want to make sure mine is not "milling" as well.

[Chuck in Indiana]

When you changed the position of the upper mounting hole of the starter bracket did that place the axis of the starter gear closer to or further away from the ring gear? Nice pic of the proper engagement. I want to make sure mine is not "milling" as well.

Sorry for the late reply, we were out at Granddaughter's national softball tournament in Denver.  Farther away. If you look at the image with the ring gear missing, you can see the witness mark on the bottom washer on how far I had to move it. That hole was seriously elongated. The top hole had a steel bushing that was a tap fit into the casting. The bottom didn't. (?) Bob says he thinks the pinion was deflecting the ring gear to engage.
At any rate, if I were you, I'd remove the starter motor and manually push the pinion out to check ring gear engagement. He said they had a fancy gauge at Delco Remy, but it was about the diameter of a paper clip.  That should be a tight fit between the gullet of the ring gear and the pinion.

[Kamcoman77]

Here's a diagram of paper clip idea.

[jrbirdman47]

Beautiful! Thanks guys!

[Chuck in Indiana]

Dusk patrol yesterday evening.. no cows were harmed on this sortie. 

Time for an update of Bullet's travails.
When Provaslov Verner had said "your battery is weak" and forgot to tell his son Kamil who runs the company now, that is where the delay happened. Once Kamil was in the loop, things moved right along. We had some language barriers of course..we don't even use the same alphabet..but managed to communicate.
My engine is one of the first run of 10 that were converted to left hand rotation, the 3VL. That is *probably*the cause of the starter location being off. The picture I posted of having power to the crankcase with the battery unhooked was a red herring. I had forgotten that I had run a dedicated ground to the instrument panel, and it was grounding the whole airplane.
At any rate, Kamil sent me a new unfinished starter ring gear and a coil and CDI unit to test. All 3 of my CDI units had failed. (!) He only charged me $50 for DHLs very fast shipping by the way.
Once I had determined that the CDI units had failed, he sent two more, and they arrived in 3 days from the Czech Republic. 
Don't worry about parts availability or service..
During this time, I powder coated the new ring gear and cranked it several times with the relocated starter casting as shown in the previous picture. It's not even knocking off the paint, much less "milling" the ring gear, so that issue is solved.
Now.. why did the ignition unit fail? When Kamil's dad said my battery was weak, I hooked up the lithium battery charger to the battery cables at the engine, and I *think* that must have caused the CDI units to fail the smoke test. It is the only thing I can think of.
At any rate, it was good to get back in the air after several weeks of scratching my head.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Pappy PMed my about the tailwheel assembly as used by Les and others, so I thought I'd update what has actually worked. 
This is version number 1. Bad idea in a couple of ways.

I'll continue after I get dressed, and go to the hanger and take another picture.
I had grossly underestimated the load on the tailwheel on a sod surface. First, the bronze bushings got hot enough to melt the plastic wheel. (embarassed)
So, wanting to fly, I sourced an industrial castor to fit the 5/8" dia. axle.

That worked, but is *really* heavy. Another thing was as the spring rebounded, the set screw that keeps the whole assembly from falling out beat up the bottom of the bronze bushing. I removed the bushing, silver soldered a 4130 wear ring to it, and turned it down to fit in the tail post.
More later..

[Chuck in Indiana]

Pappy said he had the same tailwheel from Amazon Aircraft Supply (2 for $10) as I'm using and wanted a picture. Here's what I did. Band sawed and carefully ground off the tubing that had held the original tailwheel. Made two pieces of 3/32" flat stock and welded them on.Weighs practically nuthin'    and has been working well for the last several hours.

[pappyadkins]

Thank you very Much.... I just love this community...

[Chuck in Indiana]

"Hey boss, it's too nice a morning for you to be sitting around drinking coffee.. let's go smash some bugs!" "Ah, Bullet, you know you are so slow that bugs just bounce off..":smile:

"well, I can dream, can't I? I see from the windmills the wind is gently blowing from the Northwest now, maybe you should land the opposite way we took off."

It's always fun to play "spot the grass strip.."

"It was good for me, boss.." "Yes, yes it was." 

[okdonn]

"Pappy said he had the same tailwheel from Amazon Aircraft Supply (2 for $10) as I'm using and wanted a picture."
Would you supply the part number/description for this tailwheel? It looks very nice!

[Chuck in Indiana]

Can do. I see the price has gone up..
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D313W99/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[okdonn]

Thanks! Even at the increased price, I'll order a pair.