After hours of faithful service, my Nirvana is due for some cleaning and service. This was evidence as for the past several weekends flying I have difficulty to kill my engine. Both the kill switches (master and secondary switch) fail to stop the engine. I suspect this caused by faulty wiring. Lucky my landing was uneventful and my touch down always standing still.
So last friday upon back from work, I did a minor surgery to my engine to diagnose the kill switch problem. Using Fluke 1000 multimeter I check and test continuity of all the switches and wire. The kill switch at the throttle was not in good condition as the housing has cracked and the metal plate inside the switch has rusted so I change it. After spending minutes on it I found out the wire that goes to the kill switch was cut by the edge of pull starter plastic housing due to vibration.
After I cleaned up all the connection, I unsheathe the wire that was cut,rejoined it using solder and cover the join with head shrink tube bought at ACE Hardware. This ensure the join is strong and prevent it from touching engine body that will cause unnecessary inconvenience or dead stick landing if the engine quit midair. I also discover that the wire that connect to battery charger is also cut which is why my battery pack was never get charge during flight and I have to resort using external battery charger to charge my battery.
Once all the wire connection repaired and corrected, I remount the engine and reconnect all the wire connectors. I also adjusted the throttle cable by making sure it got enough travel to open the walbro carburator butterfly opening to maximum without stressing the stopper plate. Its important to have this set right so I can get precise power setting while in the air. Then I fill up petrol to the tank, crank the engine for a while to get it run. I press the kill switch which now work and my engine can stop properly now.
I'm glad I service my engine and I plan to do this regularly to keep my engine in good shape. All this done only cost me few 'ringgit' for the heat shrink tube, the push-button switch,some sweat and few hours of my time for many hours of trouble free flying time.
Fly safe..........
