PilotX

Dang right @Marc_B

My partner made it back. We flew together a couple of days later. The turbo was turboing. All is well except my bank account is sad.

Autopilot. Our paint is mostly original 35 years old. A well integrated autopilot is golden.

Any luck with the dynamic balance? Reached out to the locals and they told my I was almost due for an overhaul (2019 OH, 300hours).

My speed brakes are vacuum powered so I kept one pump.

Only one thought. Bravo.

All done a little over 10AMU. Nobody can figure out why the shaft was bent. It was bent on the intake side if I recall my partner’s explanation. Regardless, runups complete should be coming home on Friday.

They didn’t say. Only anomaly…there was one mounting bolt that was inside the cowling. Surprised it stayed in the plane, appears that it worked its way out at some point and maybe a bump on landing or rough patch of the ramp caused it to drop out and cause some bowing in the turbo, even that seems implausible as the TIT at landing was 1100 and for the three minutes prior below 1300 during descent. We have reams of engine data and we run the turbo below 1650, generally around 1615, but again, I doubt we will ever know the “cause”. That bolt wasn’t there the week prior when it came out of annual though they did find the left (as you are looking at it) clamp loose, not the the one subject to the AD. Could have been a lot of vibration. Could have been a bearing failure that caused the shaft to shift causing contact with the side of the inlet causing a bend. Could have been space aliens.

Update today. Turbo removed, shaft is bent, should be rebuilt at the lower end of the quote window ~6100.

I'll look at the logs. Given that we have been flying at the same power settings (prior to a probe failure) it should have resulted in the same TIT but checking costs nothing. Still waiting to hear from WS. Hope they get to it by today so it can get shipped off. Still on the ramp, they have not pulled it over yet. The dreaded "hopefully soon".

Western Airways is going to manage the R&R with the turbo overhaul quote range $6-10,5 AU. Reviewed the logs. No indication of pending failure. We fly LOP but TIT below 1650.

Good news, Gary at Main Turbo said around 3-4 day turnaround on an overhaul. Now to get it pulled and shipped. video of the turbo: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/yw6nzz18n8felkpol1dtb/IMG_4433.mov?rlkey=1sv01x126mbx2sjuydg1w9ork&st=9qc3qxl8&dl=0

It is wobbly, didn't post a video, but my partner popped off the hose and was able to wiggle it. Sourcing v-band, Textron has some but. What do we need to consider with oil system?

Lot of questions. Plane is a couple hours away, by plane, so I will get somebody to pull it and overhaul it. It will either go to Main Turbo or Western Skyways, which is on the field. Certainly have to make sure there isn't any metal floating around, could be too late either way as it was run a couple of times after the issue was discovered but wouldn't get above ambient MP. I'll let everybody know.

I just looked through the logs, no indication of the age of the turbo (new/overhauled/swapped) from when the engine was installed in 2019. Is the turbo part of a factory overhaul? The governor is listed, the prop (belly landing) oil hoses, oil cooler, overhauled alternators, vac pump, starter.