Now that summer is finally here and the weather is getting nice, flying season has arrived in the great white north of Wisconsin.

I go over to the hangar this evening to take the Mangy for a ride. When I get there I see that there was a little puddle of coolant under the plane, so I took off the cowl to tighten a clamp or what ever needed to be done.

First: After removing the cowl I see the muffler. Then I see the crack in the muffler. Then I see two more cracks in the muffler! Well, I guess I'm not going bug smashing tonight...

I take apart the muffler and front head pipes, so that I can take it over to a friend of mine, who happens to be a master welder. Been there, done that before. At least the slip joints came apart easily.

Second: As long as the muffler is out of the way I can really investigate the coolant situation. Yup. You guessed it. Coolant coming out of the pump weep hole. Now the entire engine needs to come off the Mangy to take apart the whole back end to get to the water pump drive shaft seal...


I think I may need to take up canoeing...