Flying With New Cylinder Head Temp Gauge

 I went to fly last week.  While taxiing out the CHT went to zero and I couldn't find the loose connection.  I had ordered a Westach 2 1/4" CHT gauge and sender from Aircraft Spruce so I gave up and waited for the mail to deliver my treasures.

For now I put it in the hole from the dead clock.  I'll move it to the lower left where the extra Airspeed, I'm using as a cooling pressure gauge, is located once I solve the cooling problem.  It turns out the bad connection is under the white electrical tape to the left of the the hand held temp. gauge.

I calibrated the new gauge up to 430 degrees F. it reads in degrees C but it was spot on all the way.  It's not as precise as the hand held but it works fine.  

I'll hook the hand held to the aft cylinder on the other side so I'll be able to see temperature on each back of cylinders.

Yesterday was in the low 70's and overcast at 7,000 feet so a nice calm afternoon to go flying with the new gauge.  There was a wall of rain about 10 miles to the north.  If you look close on the picture at the right you can see the mountains disappear behind the rain just in front of the spreader bar.

Ten miles south we had clear bright sunshine, go figure.

The leaves are really filling in fast on the trees around our little lake.

I only flew about 45 minutes.  The rain was heading for the airport from the west.  I landed in light rain with the windshield covered in rain.  I got the plane refueled just as the rain picked up.  We'll have more nice days.