I know people at work who can assemble an engine. Being
able to assemble an engine is very basic to the 'mechanic'.

An aircraft engine is not a car engine. Car engines are heavily
built and with fairly robust tolerances; they are designed to

I was interested to note (in a new book, Hat in the Ring, about the
U.S. Air Service in WWI) that French planes as late as 1918 weren't
built of interchangeable parts. I assume that was true of European
assembly plants generally.

Just this morning, a poster on a Piper Cub Builders list remarked that
in the 1930s and 1940s, pilots who pranged their J-3s discovered that
replacement parts direct from the factory never seemed to fit exactly,
but had to be tweaked and hammered into place.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com