Houman Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Hi, I was doing a flight today from Montreal to Toronto, on my way back I stopped in ottawa for fuel and bathroom, once I started back up, everything was fine on the run up, but after takeoff, I had a bit of shaking, I was not making my normal rocket power and once go to clean config, noticed the cylinder 5 was not showing any temp on the EDM, I was making the 35 mp, but not the power or usual speed, so turned back to the airport and landed safely. Now I am stuck and have to troubleshoot tomorrow... Anyone have any idea ? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M016576 Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Clogged injector. Soak it in MEK and blow it out Edit: I'd start there. If that's not it, check magp-leads and both spark plugs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliffy Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Take a plug out and make sure you have compression on #5, check both plugs and then check the fuel injector for clogs. Did you notice anything different on the fuel flow? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houman Posted August 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Thanks to both for suggestions, i really did'nt have time to diagnose IT on the air, i just circuled and since this was my very 1st engine issue as à pilot, i wanted nothing else than get to the runway,,, Should i try a run up today and see how IT goes, or start by getting a mecanic at the airport i am at ?.... Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_elliott Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Cliffy is right, it has to be air fuel or spark on #5. Should be easy to figure out which it is, then a bit more painful to correct. Glad your ok and it wasn't catastrophic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbridges Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Cliffy is right, it has to be air fuel or spark on #5. Should be easy to figure out which it is, then a bit more painful to correct. Glad your ok and it wasn't catastrophic. Â Â would the odds go with fuel since you have dual magnetos and dual spark plugs? Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yvesg Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 What airport are you at? I can probably give you the phone number and name of the closest mechanic. Yves Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houman Posted August 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Yves, I am at CYOW at Shell... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aviatoreb Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Glad all is well FormationHY! Â I once had a similar issue sort of in my previous airplane, but fortunately it became obvious before I left the ground, during take-off roll. Â It was in my (former) Diamond DA40 with the Lycoming IO360. Â After an uneventful run-up, during full power during take off roll, the engine started shuttering significantly. Â So I pulled back power and hit the breaks to a stop 2/3 down the runway still on the ground. Â Turned out to be a clogged injector that clogged itself just after runup. Â With 4 cylinders vs 6 cylinders, dragging one piston not generating power causes a much greater shutter that is more severe and obvious....i.e, I guess 5 of 6 is smoother than 3 of 4. Â My bet is you have a clogged injector and it will be cleaned up quick and easy with the help of a local mechanic. Â Good luck!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earl Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Just curious, when you say no temps on the EDM does that mean you just didn't see it on the bars because it was too cool or it was essentially zero on the digital readout?  And was is it both the CHT and EGT that were low?  If it was totally dead it may be a stuck valve or bad cylinder.  A compression check would detect that issue.  If it was a bad plug it would run rough and not make full power but you would see high EGT temps since the excess fuel would not be burned in the cylinder.  If it was a plugged injector it seems like you would have seen some temperature on the EDM for that cylinder but maybe not enough to show up on the bars.  I think the real question is whether the cylinder was completely dead or just providing partial power.  If it was completely dead it has to be a valve or the cylinder itself.  If the other troubleshooting with the injectors and plugs doesn't work I would have the cylinder borescoped.  As for it being fuel contamination, it seems to me that would affect the entire engine and not one cylinder unless it was some debris that got into the injector lines.  My fear would be a bad cylinder or valve but try to others first to be sure.  And this goes without saying but I'll say it anyway, don't fly it until you are 100% sure they found the problem.  I am looking at an A36 that had a similar problem, the guy landed due to engine roughness and lack of full power, ran it on the ground, all seemed fine and then he took off and the engine quit and he had to make a forced landing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orionflt Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 from your description of a cold cylinder i would believe you are not getting fuel to that cylinder, to be an ignition problem a combination of both spark plugs, ignition leads or mags would have had to have some kind of failure (not likely). the other possibility would be a failure with in the cylinder, that should be easily checked by pulling the prop thru and making sure you have compression on all the cylinders. if one is weak or dead then you will need to do more investigating.  good luck and hope your back in the ait today.  Brian 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartman Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 I had this happen once. Just so happens it was about 3-4 flights after a complete tank reseal so my first thought was partially clogged injector. One of the cylinders was colder than tho their three. We were at 9500 over KTRI headed to the beach so we landed and I told the mechanic it had to be an injector. He cleaned them all, good runup, good test flight, and we were on our way in about 2 hours. Never had an issue since then. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinerunner Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 from your description of a cold cylinder i would believe you are not getting fuel to that cylinder, to be an ignition problem a combination of both spark plugs, ignition leads or mags would have had to have some kind of failure (not likely). the other possibility would be a failure with in the cylinder, that should be easily checked by pulling the prop thru and making sure you have compression on all the cylinders. if one is weak or dead then you will need to do more investigating.  good luck and hope your back in the ait today.  Brian With dual magneto systems it takes terrible bad luck to lose spark so I would think fuel first. Its easy to overlook fuel problems while doing a great job on everything else. I was happy to read this response because I've wondered about the possibility of little bits of old tank sealing material clogging the jets and making trouble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinerunner Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 I had this happen once. Just so happens it was about 3-4 flights after a complete tank reseal so my first thought was partially clogged injector. One of the cylinders was colder than tho their three. We were at 9500 over KTRI headed to the beach so we landed and I told the mechanic it had to be an injector. He cleaned them all, good runup, good test flight, and we were on our way in about 2 hours. Never had an issue since then.   from your description of a cold cylinder i would believe you are not getting fuel to that cylinder, to be an ignition problem a combination of both spark plugs, ignition leads or mags would have had to have some kind of failure (not likely). the other possibility would be a failure with in the cylinder, that should be easily checked by pulling the prop thru and making sure you have compression on all the cylinders. if one is weak or dead then you will need to do more investigating.  good luck and hope your back in the ait today.  Brian I really wanted to quote both of these. As well as bits of new tank sealing material, I wonder about bits of old sealant clogging injectors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSMooniac Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 I too vote on the clogged injector theory. Â Have the mechanic try to "recover" any debris in a clean rag so you can possibly identify it, vs. just blowing it out in the hangar. Â If it is fuel tank sealant, go upstream and check the gascolator screen. Â If you find more, you might want to consider flushing the system out. Â This is a case where an engine monitor is very valuable... you already know which cylinder is misbehaving, and have a couple good places to start looking. Â Imagine life in the good old days with no monitors, and you have some power loss and engine shaking and tell the mechanic "engine doesn't make full power and is shaking badly. Â fix it!" Â You'd be looking at hours of troubleshooting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omega708 Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Thanks to both for suggestions, i really did'nt have time to diagnose IT on the air, i just circuled and since this was my very 1st engine issue as à pilot, i wanted nothing else than get to the runway,,, Should i try a run up today and see how IT goes, or start by getting a mecanic at the airport i am at ?.... Thanks  Good job flying the plane!  Glad to hear you landed safely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yvesg Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 I gave him a few local mechanic's phone numbers in case he needs it. He is in good hands. Yves Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aviatoreb Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Â Â And this goes without saying but I'll say it anyway, don't fly it until you are 100% sure they found the problem. Â I am looking at an A36 that had a similar problem, the guy landed due to engine roughness and lack of full power, ran it on the ground, all seemed fine and then he took off and the engine quit and he had to make a forced landing. Â That was the scenario when I aborted a take off a few years ago with my Diamond DA40. Â The abort need was quite obvious but then after the abort there was no sign of trouble. Â So it might have been enticing to just go ahead and depart - especially since I was expected to go somewhere. Â But no - I called it a day and taxiied back to the hangar and called the mechanic. Â Two days later when he showed it turned out that yes the injector was clogged. Â So follow Earl's advice - don't just slough off an engine trouble signs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wishboneash Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 In my case last year, it was a cylinder suddenly losing compression during take off roll. Hope for the best in your case and it is a clogged fuel injector. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliffy Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 BTW you did a damn good job of diagnosing the situation and getting on the ground safely. Congrats! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houman Posted August 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Ok, first of all thanks to all of you guys ( and gals ) for the suggestions, and most specially thanks to YvesG that gave me a mechanic's number near by and that mecanic was able to give me a number of a mecanic at the airport that was availble... Anyway, Cudos to Ottawa Aviation services Maintenance and Adam Thomson to go right away to work on the plane. Anyway, here is my day and what I did : This morning before getting to the airport, I talked to my homefield mecanic that told me to do an longer than usual runup, I did that and noticed that at 1200 RPM, cyl 5 and 6 were not showing on the EDM bars, but browsing trough the indications, I saw that they had tempature, but they were much colder, especially CHT, on 1 to 4 they were around 320 and on 5 and 6 they were somewhere between 150 and 180... So I did a 2000 RPM run up and saw the CHT on both increasing slowley. AFter a while when they kind of catched up in temp, the engine seemed ok and was not shaking any more, but I am nothing if not cautious... So taxied all the way to the other side of the airport to the mecanics, noticed during taxi how fast 5 and 6 cooled down, I was no longuer able to see the CHT bar on the EDM for 5 and 6 and even after a while EGT bars were gone for both, but again looking at the individual cylender temp, I was able to see that they had just gone back to their way cool, but still some temp. Anyway, mechanics removed the plugs, and the Gammi injectors, on 6 I had a compresion of 60/80, and on 5 I had 70/80. Cyl 6 seems to be the weakest, even in the annual/import that was done in May, it was showing 65/80. The mecanics checked for any air, fuel or oil leak or obstruction, but there were no ahha moment, nothing that can tell us we fixed it, so we decided to do another long run up and I felt right away less shaking, but again low EGT and CHT reading on the EDM for cyl 5 and 6. We next tried a high speed run on the 8000 feet runway that I did with one of the mainance shop/flight school pilots, but before the run, we did another high power runup to get the temps up in normal range. He even recorded a video of the high speed run to analyse after. I was making normal power, 37 MP and got to 70 kt in no time and no shaking. We did'nt take off, but I was feeling much better. So I left and cruise was absolutely normal, all temps stayed as the usually do, got home safe, but after my landing at home, I noticed right away after clearing the active runway that my EGT was much lower on 5 and 6 and CHT bar was gone, so again checked, they had already cooled to the 200 CHT level where the other ones were still in the 300's... So I might have an temp sensor problem, but that dos'nt explain not making usuall power last night, so it might have been 2 different snags or what ever, my local mecanic will look at it. BTW, the mecanics charged me a very reasonable fees ( less than 300$ for time and materiel ) Glad to have gone trough my 1st semi-emergency as a pilot and nothing got messed up more than it already was Again thanks to YvesG, I owe you dinner or breakfast and couple of cold ones, unless we are flying Houman ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aviatoreb Posted August 29, 2014 Report Share Posted August 29, 2014 Very interesting FormationHY. Â By the way full take off pressure in your airplane should be 38'' not 37''. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hondo Posted August 30, 2014 Report Share Posted August 30, 2014 I once killed a cylinder by taxing too rich.  Back at the hangar, checked the plugs (carbon), cleaned  and reinstalled them. Taxied back with mixture out 1" and the run up was normal. Rich for takeoff with no problems since (>600 hours).  A mixture rich enough to foul a plug will show up on the engine monitor as an EGT reading dropping well below the other cylinders, which tells you that the fire is about to go out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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