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Since this is the gear that drives the mags, you should be able to remove one of them and see what you have. 

I've never been very happy with the way my downlock pins engaged.  Getting them to slide home was more tedious than I liked.  Last week I decided to see what was going on.  I checked the rigging and condition of the retract mechanism and found nothing amiss.  What I did find was that although the downlock pins looked like new, I think they were the early design that Service memo #8 requested be replaced.  The nose of the pin was round like a ball bearing.  I had a pair of the taper-nosed pins similar to Paul Rule's drawing.  They completely resolved the problem.  I've attached a photo so you can compare the old and new pins.  If anyone is planning to replace their gear pins, be aware that the length of the bullet nose may need to differ in order to accomodate variations between individual Cadets.   

Phil,

I checked with Stan Piteau, about the colors.  I thought he would be the best person to ask.  He has a lot of information on Culver production and history. 

He says that he has  found only one reference to color in all of his Culver documents.  That one was for a plane to be delivered to the customer wearing yellow paint, with the trim color to be applied later.

All of the old photos are black and white, but at least you can get an idea of the paint schemes that were used.

My guess is that you have one mag with an impulse coupling and one without.  With that configuration, you would normally start the engine on the one with the impulse coupling.  In addition to giving a hotter spark, the coupling also retards the ignition at cranking speeds.  You would switch to both mags after the engine starts.

I've dealt with this issue on one of the Bellanca Vikings that I've owned.  On that Bellanca, the areas where screws were fastened to plywood were accessable from the back side.  Because of that, Bellanca used fasteners attached to the back side of the skin.  I've replaced a few of those.  On the Cadet, when a hole is enlarged, you're faced with trying so solve the problem from the outside.  The blind nuts that I'm aware of all rely on the mechanical friction resulting from being squeezed onto the skin.  I'm not sure that would work so well on plywood.  Is there another type that would work well on plywood?

I've posted the Wichita factory photos on the website.  They're accessable from the main photo page by clicking on the thumbnail image.

Bill

Here's a couple of photos of a prototype Culver V with a nosewheel that rotates 90 degrees when retracted.