Since my last update, essentially nothing has happened.
Poplar Grove has disassembled the engines and done preliminary checks on the parts that will be reused. It looks like the crankshafts are in good enough shape to be reused, which is good, as IO-470-L crankshafts are hard to find right now. The visual and dimensional inspections were OK, but the crankshafts still need to have a “magnetic particle inspection,” colloquially known as a “magnaflux” test. In this test, the tester magnetizes the part using a big ol’ electromagnet and coats the part with iron particles to look for incipient or actual cracks. The shop needs to do that before signing off on the crankshafts, so until that’s done I am not 100% confident that I won’t get stuck waiting for replacement for one or both crankshafts.
As of two weeks ago, the last time I checked, my engines were #19 and #20 in Poplar Grove’s build queue. With luck, they’ll complete the magnaflux tests before the 4th of July and then, assuming they pass, the build can start. Steve tells me that maybe he can shave a couple of weeks off the initial timeline estimate of 25 weeks, which would be nice.
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