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Biting that bullet meant that the airplane had to be down for break-in maintenance at only five hours of engine time - earlier than the plan.  It also meant the engine had to come off the plane, which is NOT part of the break-in plan.

I did a lot of small things at this time, one of which is shown in the first picture.  It was hard to check and fill the tires with the wheel pants as I first made them and taking them on and off is a big deal.  I cut the relief shown in the picture on both of the main wheel pants. It is not needed on the nose pant.  It has worked very well. The tires have maintained pressure very well and have not needed a lot of air, but when they do, it’s a piece of cake.

I would need a place to work on the engine so my engine stand was reattached to the work table at the hanger.  In the picture you can see the procedure I developed to make sure I disconnected everything in the right order and could then get it all back together again.

      The propeller was the first item off, then it was time to disconnect all the engine attachments.  The last picture shows the engine just before all of the pieces started to come off.