Engines prepared for start April 2025

Alex and I spent hours in the sun on top of the wings carefully fitting the carburettors - overhauled at great expense.and shipped back to us. Getting to the back nuts was really tight work with our sausage like fingers trying to persuade recalcitrant nuts over studs hidden as far away as Grumman could get them.
Dropping a nut resulted in a half our extraction process depending on where it had run away to in the depths of the engine. Using the specially made "Alex" wrench enabled us to tighten each nut an eighth of a turn at a time ! Finally, they are on and tightened down followed by connecting rods and the rest of the kit required to get them functional on the engines.
Drag the heavy ramp around to each engine and remove sparkplugs to gain access to the engines and lubricate them before dragging the propellors around to slide the pistons up and down the cylinders and check that everything is feeling smooth and ready to rotate easily. Then refit all the sparkplugs!
Oil top up - a bit of a problem when the only way to lift a barrel of oil 12 foot up onto the wing is a forklift carefully operated by Richard - same procedure for the Avgas required in the tanks - pictures say it all!
Hydraulic fluids were a little easier thanks to the smaller quantities.
End of a long day in 30 degree Celsius heat and 90 percent humidity