the_elkhartian

The lifter “collapsed”...To be totally honest I’m not comfortable with the mechanics of what that means. But (I’m told) there was not the tell-tale metal on metal tapping sound I’m told is a bad sound when you’re dealing with unhealthy lifter-to-cam lobe impact. Mechanic said he would inspect the cam to make sure there wasn’t any damage.

It’s just really shiny oil. That area of the cylinder looks just like the other non-shiny-black-hole-to-another-dimension part of the cylinder you see above/below/right of that spot. It’s pretty smooth. I specifically looked but did not observe any cross hatching on the cylinder walls.

Scoped the cylinder this morning and found that the Valve seat had come loose and moved to keep the valve in a stuck open position. Pulled the cylinder and this is what he found (in addition to improperly torqued bolts holding the cylinder on)... The intake valve is stuck open with the valve seat wedges underneath it. It was sticking up enough that it actually came in contact with the piston. The question according to my mechanic is if the valve seat can be re-seated or if it requires replacement. He’s also going to soak the piston to see if there’s any major damage from that impact but he doesn’t think so. Any other thoughts or comments from the group?

When I look at prior flights or longer flights, I see #1 showing a consistently lower EGT... Would a failed ring in #1 explain the compression? The current plan is to scope the cylinder and see if the valves are opening/closing properly. If so, that would narrow it down to a piston issue....or the diamond etching you mentioned. I have a 700....I guess I haven't thought about buying an old used laptop to run the JPI software. I am a Mac user at home and my work PC is so locked down with defense-level security that you can't even plug in a mouse. It's a simpler more elegant solution just to buy the $170 JPI box... but I might look around for an old PC with a serial port for a little while. So I've never really thought about it. Mag check process I follow is run up to 2000 rpm, normalize the readout on the JPI, switch to single mag watch EGT +/- equally peak on all 4 cyls, then back to both and watch it come back down, then to the other mag same process. You bring up an interesting point that if I'm not doing that for at least 6 seconds then I'm not getting any good data recorded. I'll start singing the "happy birthday" song on each mag going forward. This is also why I would like an updated JPI monitor. More/better info. All 4 cyls. overhauled 3/31/00 or about 1100 hours ago. Looks like #4 failed 8 years/500 hours later and was replaced.

I'll have to go back and look at the logs....from memory I think that 1 & 3 might go all the way back to the last overhaul--1995 and about 1500 hours. #4 cylinder was replaced more recently. Would definitely prefer to investigate and resolve myself! What steps should I take?

AOG would love some group input. I had been having an intermittent Alternator issue that was getting progressively worse. It almost caused a diversion on a flight back from TX on 8/15, but it quit acting up and I made it back to PHX. Life was particularly busy for a couple of weeks, but I finally flew the airplane on 9/11 just to try and replicate the issue. Alternator would go offline, but it would come right back on if I cycled the field current breaker. 8/15 Flight from TX: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/4403545/a80749ad-ac57-4aac-acf6-3a0c8b2357e3 9/11 Test Flight: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/4403549/734aea31-0f86-4782-a6bf-aaba91436fee So I took it into the shop. They identified a number of improperly crimped connectors as well as several places where wire insulation had rubbed through from contact with various airframe/engine components. Theory being something was grounding out and throwing the alternator offline. So, they cleaned that up and did a couple of run tests and said it was fixed. Test Run 9/14: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/4403550/63781083-feb2-45f9-bd4a-a69c342055e9 Test Run 9/15: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/4403551/976aadd9-bf0e-4400-b7b8-2ff0a4e17b5b Pay special attention to that 9/14 test run. I get the airplane back out of the shop and go fire it up for the first time on 9/25 and I get zero EGT reading right off the bat for Cyl. 1. I try a run-up and I'm getting a lot of vibration. 9/25: Run-up: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/4403552/c2985051-121f-43c3-92ca-5be7b7f87b6f Shop comes and does a quick look. My first suspicion is that they have done something somehow to kill my cylinder. MIF is the best I could hope for. I get a call (this is a Friday afternoon of course) and they say that I have zero compression on my #1 and #3 cylinders. This week I talk to the mechanic and he says that #1 cylinder is indeed dead. Zero compression. He's able to get compression on #3 with a warm engine. Test Run 10/1: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/4403550/63781083-feb2-45f9-bd4a-a69c342055e9 A friend of mine was able to go by yesterday and download the JPI Datat (I have the cable! But I don't have the downloader box...and I've been a CB holding out to use that money for a more modern engine monitor...) And here we are today. I appreciate your insights and theories, all of ye sage engine monitor geeks and wizards. JP

I have the 2-blade McCauley B2D34C214 on my C model, and I can definitely hear and feel the cowl flaps open. I have the LASAR 201 cowling. There isn't really a trail setting, its just open or closed.

I was in this same boat in March-June of this year. I was trying to stay under $75k. It's very difficult to find a clean airplane. Finding one that has the right mix of avionics, engine time, damage history, and aesthetics is straight up unicorn hunting. So, first lesson: The perfect airplane doesn't exist. You're going to compromise on something. (For me it was slightly higher engine time than I wanted, and no modern autopilot....I at least have an autopilot (Brittain with altitude hold, which a lot of people here would probably love to have) but it's a little archaic. Second lesson: be ready to move fast. I got excited about a C model in my town that was posted here on MS. I had setup a time to see it within a couple of hours of being posted, and was going to see it the NEXT DAY....and before I even went to bed that night the owner messaged me and told me it was sold. Third lesson: you might just get lucky. My airplane was under contract the first time I inquired about it. Still I gave the guy my info and asked him to let me know if anything changed. Well, something changed...so he reached back out to me. I put a deposit on the airplane the next day, sight unseen. Lastly, financing is pretty easy. I had it built up in my head that it was going to be easier to just pay cash, but I talked to a couple of banks anyway, and ultimately decided to use a little leverage. The difficulty can be described somewhere between "harder than a car loan" and "a lot easier than a home mortgage". I had a great experience with BANK out of Iowa. Met them a few years ago at OSH and just happened to keep a little swag microfiber cloth on my desk that had their info. Daniel Steiner was fantastic to work with and their rates were as good as I can find anywhere. www.bank.bank Highly recommend.

Agree on the lowest point theory. I’ll watch it and verify where it’s leaking from now that I cleaned it up a little. As far as mushy it’s hard to say. They are definitely softer than the 2020 Archer I flew earlier this week. But they’re about the same as they’ve been since I’ve owned the airplane. Previous owner had the flap pump overhauled at annual in May. (Lasar did the overhaul, local shop did the install) so I have no confidence as to whether they bled the system properly or what my brakes “should” feel like.

Thread resurrection... Am I having the same issue as above? I have the tiniest leak and it appears to be coming from the bleeder. In about a week I have about a one inch spot of brake fluid on the ground. I took a picture after wiping the little zerk. But before I did it had a tiny little sphere of 5606 hanging right off the tip. So I think it’s leaking from there.

Are you wanting to rent it out to solo? Or use it for dual training? Seems like insurance is going to be the limiting factor in renting out for solo renters... As far as training, in$urance is probably going to be the limiting factor here too. But in the age of Technologically Advanced Aircraft (TAA) there are no ratings that require any complex aircraft experience. That’s why there are 1,000 C172RG’s on the market. So other than vanity, there is no reason that someone would pay to train in an RG anything (for primary training). I guess there’s a small market of people that would be looking for complex endorsements, but people training to be pro pilots would just check that box in their multi engine training.

200 seems to be normal cruise Oil temp in my C (IO-360 with 201 Lasar cowl). Did a flight review for a friend of mine with a K a couple of weeks ago and I was nervous because HE was nervous when his oil temp went over 200. mine seems to always be over 200.... I don’t know if it should but this thread makes me feel better?

I’m not exactly sure. I only do FAA training. The JCAB is all sorts of crazy....you think we have it bad with our Feds....I think it has to do with glide ratio? Aviation lobbyists? Not sure. I do deal with the Indian DGCA...most Indian aviation regulations are in word documents. Not PDFs. Word documents. They will convert training in an Archer but not in a Seminole. So our Indian students do their single private and instrument in an Archer then MECPL in a DA42.

I work at a big ab initio flight school. We were looking for a replacement for our aging DA40 fleet. We have a customer whose govt aviation authority doesn’t allow training in Piper products (Japan). We kicked the tires on the Cirrus. Flew it. Then we talked to some peer flight schools (big university programs mostly) that had a Cirrus. The maintenance and upkeep data they shared was way worse than the DA40. And the diamond stuff is at least 30% more expensive to maintain than a Piper Archer III. So, we still have DA40s. And a whole lot of Archers (40). The 2019 Archer TX with an air conditioner and G1000NXI is probably the segment leader for training aircraft. We are taking delivery of 5 new Archers per month for the rest of the year. Maintenance example: We had a piece of fuselage get dented on a PA28. Some unknown object fell on it. The guys in our repair shop drilled the rivets out. Cut a new panel. Installed and riveted the new panel into place and spray painted it with rustoleum. Was fixed in 24 hours. We had a DA 40 get a crack in a non-structural section of the fuselage. It required engineering sign off from Austria and two months of parts on order including approved paint to finish the repaired fiberglass. Plastic airplanes are bad news, at least in a training/maintenance environment. On the other hand, Im familiar with an awesome Cirrus only flight school at SQL. They cater to the more money than time (and possibly sense) crowd who wants to learn to fly in the Bay Area. Very successful, they turn around and sell/leaseback planes from their HNW students. Works great for them, and they attract a certain clientele with all the vain gizmos and parachutes that come with a Cirrus. Piper Archers aren’t sexy, but they’re workhorses. Inverse is true for Cirrus and Diamond. I also realize most flight schools don’t consistently put 7+ hours per day on their airplanes. So in a slower environment maybe the plastic holds up better.

My C has J style visors and I don’t find that they do much unless the sun is in the exactly right spot.

What everybody else said....12.9 is too big. Your lap is probably the most convenient spot. I'm not a big kneeboard fan. But I do have this MyClip that I will sometimes put on. If it's bumpy it's just enough to keep the iPad from hitting you in the jaw. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0842BLLHX/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Ogo9Eb5D423X6 I have a Mini as my primary....and an older iPad 10" as my backup.

Come to think of it, I had a suspicious interaction as well. I actually reached out but then a real human had helped me out this person got a little pushy so I ignored them. Somebody call the law!

Oh another question.....C2V3 on the plexiglass?

For sure.....my question is more specifically about the Optima No Rinse as I will be doing that prior to the C2V3.....Is ONR really step 1? Or do I need to do any prep before the ONR?

Amazon just delivered my ONR and C2V3....I have a date with the Mooney on Saturday.... I've never used ONR....will it work this easily with a reallly dirty airplane? Or do I need to do a pre-rinse? I live in the desert and right now the plane lives outside.....so 24 hours gives you a fine coating of dust...

Are we sure it will even fly?!?

Maybe I'm behind, but I just saw a press release on the DA-50. Looks pretty interesting as a Cirrus alternative. https://www.diamondaircraft.com/en/about-diamond/newsroom/news/article/introducing-the-all-new-diamond-aircraft-5-seat-da50-rg-with-retractable-gear/ I fly a DA-40 and DA-42.....really good flying airplanes. Can be maintenance hogs, but that is in a flight school environment where we are beating the %^*$* out of them. Impressive: useful load >1200lbs 5 seat config 2+3 RG single-engine....you don't see those much these days. Aesthetics....i think it's a better looking airplane than a Cirrus...less bulbous Decent max range 750nm fuel economy (9gph on a Continental Diesel) Meh max speed 181 ktas from 300hp price tag (TBD, but Im sure not a bargain)

Just go climb the stairs and ask them what they’re up to! Worst case scenario we can take up a collection around here to bail you out...

Some of the new non-Max 800s (and others) ship out with the improved winglets (that go up and down). Best tell-tale sign to me is the big@$$ engine with the scalloped engine nacelle

One of the things I talked to BANK about was loaning against some equity that I'm not interested in selling at the moment. They were open to it. I ended up not doing it, just because I realized I was making something simple too complicated....and I had the cash (and cashflow) to just do a traditional financing....I started my career as an investment banker (worst job I ever had)...so my mind can go to unnecessarily complicated financial arrangements. Airplanes are relatively stable assets...like a house. Nobody gives you crap for taking out a 20-year 4% mortgage on a house.....but when it's a 20-year 4% loan on an airplane suddenly it's bad? I don't think so. To each his own.