A64Pilot

Yes we all did, and we were breaking the internal structure of the horizontal doing so, usually the nose ribs. but also the spar. I don’t anymore. https://www.faasafety.gov/gslac/alc/libview_normal.aspx?id=158943 So as I consider the internal structure of the horizontal as important, yes the horror, the thought of the horizontal failing in turbulence gives me the willies. If you have to lift the nose with your body for whatever reason, lay across the empennage (remove your belt first)

When I did my Maule. I took the original panel out and cut the entire center of it out leaving about a 1” edge of it left. to this I cut a full size panel overlay that fit on top of it and attached with several screws, nut plates installed in original panel of course. Actually I didn’t take it out now that I think about it, I removed everything and cut the center of it out. That’s actually the way a Thrush instrument panel is made, what that gives you us the ability to remove a few screws and the entire panel with everything still in it can be laid down on the yoke and give you full access to everything behind the panel, so no more laying on your back on the floor trying to reach up in the panel, everything can be done sitting in the seats Do what needs doing and when done simply place the panel back in the hole and replace the screws, and if at a later date you decide to change things in the panel, it’s as simple as cutting another overlay. Look at the right side panel and you will see the screws around the edge that if removed the entire panel comes out the front, just leave enough wire slack to allow it of course. The Maule didn’t have shock mounts, it’s panel is riveted in. My 1946 Cessna interestingly does have shock mounts. I replaced them, they have rubber inserts that of course over the years decay just like our shock doughnuts do, They aren’t hard to find as they are used on many avionics box installation too.

I’m betting dead battery / loose or dirty main power wire and the bendix still engaged. I’m thinking the prop will turn just he isn’t applying enough force to turn it.

We get spoiled by our automobiles with their water cooled engines, small cylinders and extremely tight tolerances that water cooling allows and their near zero oil consumption and we of course think that’s how it should be. Aircraft engines have huge cylinders, 90 cu in per cylinder and as they are air cooled temps vary widely and add in that no matter how they are run they must never be allowed to seize and you end up with sloppy clearances, so when they are in perfect condition they burn oil, they are supposed to, heck even the oil is formulated so that when it burns it doesn’t leave much deposits. Low or no oil consumption is not desirable. So what it boils down to is as long as we aren’t fouling plugs excessively, the thing starts well, isn’t blowing smoke when running and it makes good power as long as consumption isn’t more than 6 quarts every 10 hours, there is nothing that needs fixing, it’s airworthy. Compression of course must meet spec too. Before I overhauled my IO-540 it burned a quart every 4 or 5 hours, it was close to TBO. I bought new cylinders, set the ring gap at min tolerance, built the engine as perfect as I could, broke it in correctly and was looking forward to 1 qt every 10 or more hours. Nope, it burned 1 gt every 4 or 5 hours, same consumption it had before overhaul. Some engines for reasons that I don’t know why just consume more oil than others, it really to some extent isn’t a metric on how healthy an engine is. I’m not saying pitted cylinders are fine, they aren’t. he has excessive wear as evidenced by oil analysis, his rings won’t live as long as they would without the pits, but that’s not to say that there isn’t say at least 1,000 hours in them. I think over time the edges of the pits that are causing wear will wear it and wear rate will come down some. Except for higher than average metals he would never have known

I don’t know how to display an email other than copy and paste, so here is that. I can do a screen shot but think this is better? You have asked us to notify you when a webinar is scheduled that meets your criteria. The following webinar may be of interest to you: "Owner Maintenance - Can They Do It - Should They Do It" Topic: Owner Can Perform a Variety of Maintenance Task on Their Aircraft. The Real Question is Should They? On Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 20:00 Eastern Daylight Time (17:00 PDT; 18:00 MDT; 19:00 CDT; 14:00 HST; 16:00 AKDT; 17:00Arizona; Thursday, July 27, 2023 00:00 GMT) Select Number: EA39123229 Description: Learn about the preventive maintenance items you can perform as an owner. Learn how to decide when to perform it yourself and when its better left up to the professionals. Learn what tooling is required to perform the maintenance. Find out about manuals and what you are required to have. We will also look at some accidents when these task are not properly done. With this knowledge, you'll have a better understanding what your mechanic faces everyday. To view further details and registration information for this webinar, click here. The sponsor for this seminar is: FAASTeam GSO The following credit(s) are available for the WINGS/AMT Programs: Basic Knowledge 3 - 1 Credit Click here to view the WINGS help page Earn your WINGS to get a chance to win a prize. Go to https://www.wingsindustry.com/WINGS-Sweepstakes for more info. Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GASafety/

I remember it as a little boy my Father would let me dodge clouds, pretty much 60 years ago I guess? But if the valve is completely removed and the system is still operational it makes me think the stoppage is upstream of the valve? Plus if the valve works like I think it does it ought to be simple to check by simply putting the hose in your mouth, pulling a slight vacuum and seeing if it breaks vacuum. I don’t think I would be quick to disassemble the thing until I was sure it’s the problem. Just my opinion but I believe it’s saved people in the past that went inadvertent IMC, at least I think Mooney’s have a low fatality for inadvertent IMC and it’s the only thing I can think of that might explain why.

Just curious, what’s your inseam length?

I’ll up you an inop radar altimeter, and an inop strike finder. The strike finder seems to work but I think isn’t much good whether it actually works or not and I’d like to fix the Bonzer radar altimeter. I think it’s the R/T or antenna.

Thing is, excessive blow-by is damaging, it quickly contaminates oil with abrasive carbon and acids and some believe a Lycomings cam as it’s directly in line with the cylinders is blasted if you will with blow by and that may be one cause of cam / lifter failure. If I were to continue to fly an engine with excessive blow by, I’d shorten my oil change interval It will almost certainly stabilize and is likely to even get better

I thought chrome. But yes I believe .010 is all you can oversize, and if these weren’t new it may be that’s where they are now. If they are steel, I’d just run it, it will get slightly better over time if you don’t let it sit. As hard as cylinders are to get I’m not sure he has much option anyway.

Not that I like that Cylinders are back ordered two years, but hearing that Lycoming has such a good book of business I think bodes well for their continued survival.

My swag is there was the beginnings of corrosion on the cylinders when they were plated, otherwise we have to assume the person who put them on was blind, or the boss said use them anyway. The rust has to occur under the chrome doesn’t it? Does chrome rust? Chrome is very rust resistant, any environment that could rust chrome would eat plain cylinders, so that’s why I’m putting the fault on the chromer whoever that was. That was their primary selling point, chrome can sit without rusting, plain steel bores can’t. I’m speculating that they could have looked OK on a visual inspection.

If you figure average flight is only a couple of hours then the difference in heat gain from an inexpensive cooler and a Yetti is minuscule. Your just paying for the brand name.

If you mean Peltier plate, No. They are terribly inefficient and actually provide very little cooling or heat. If you put cold drinks in a peltier plate cooler it will keep them about 50F, if they are warm, forget it. I had a Coleman when I was Road Racing motorcycles, piece of junk, old fashioned ice chest was FAR superior. This says a Peltier plate is about 5% efficient, a decent heat pump is at least 300% efficient, an AC is a heat pump. https://rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/peltier_effect_module_cooling_efficiency_test.htm#:~:text=Peltier modules are only around 5% efficient. Anything that could re-charge could cool directly. There are pretty much only a few options, either running a compressor for vapor cycle cooling or if you have a turbine an air cycle system works really well. Or absorbing heat by having a cold mass, and water conveniently is about the best substance there is. If your really hard core a water vest can seriously keep you cold for quite a long time, but that’s pretty hard core for pleasure flying https://www.summitracing.com/parts/shf-1052-2022?seid=srese1&ppckw=pmax-safety-equipment&gclid=CjwKCAjwwb6lBhBJEiwAbuVUSkhuAhKDX4SAcmGirtln6Ccx-RWwgeIkApY8nYHcitKRd9gZ0p-neRoCxhsQAvD_BwE. I think you could build a better system for not much money, but it would take a bigger cooler to hold more ice which of course means even more weight, because you can’t increase efficiency by much at all. Just use a bigger hammer

Do some reading about the WWII fleet subs, they didn’t then. As a kid I was somewhat fascinated by the US subs, people seem to think highly of the U boats, but they failed in their mission, where the US subs didn’t they actually did effectively blockade Japan . They were only 2% of the US Navy, but sunk 30% of the Japanese navy, but decimated the civilian fleet. They were highly advanced too, they even were airconditioned, all had RADAR, advanced SONAR that could detect mines etc., TBT, torpedo computer, but the torpedoes were terrible because they weren’t tested prior to the war, because they were too expensive to “waste” testing, so they didn’t work well at all for the first couple of years, but once they were given torpedoes almost as good as the German and Japanese ones they were devastating. The Hooven-Owens-Rentscher or H.O.R. engine was the first double acting Diesel used and it was so bad it was pretty quickly abandoned, obviously they got the Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston to work but it didn’t out of the gate. The power to weight ratio plus the smaller physical size of a double acting or opposed piston two stroke was just too enticing to abandon The HOR was double acting, the Fairbanks - Morse opposed piston and the General Motors sub engine was a normal conventional Diesel and that pretty much covers the WWII sub motors. There even was a GM “pancake” motor that was a vertical 16 cyl X engine, think two V’s joined at the crank, but it too was problematic https://oldmachinepress.com/2014/08/17/general-motors-electro-motive-16-184-diesel-engine/ie The GM was reliable, but big and heavy, the HOR quickly picked up a nickname of its abbreviation and the FM motor once the bugs got worked out was fine, but it had teething problems. The GM motor and generator of course evolved into the Diesel electric train. If you have the time and want to watch an excellent film that explains all three perfectly watch this old WWII US Navy film on sub engines. The point I guess I’m trying to make is that believe it or not, but there was a huge investment in developing the Diesel about as far as it could be almost 100 years ago. I think but am not sure that the opposed piston FM was built under license from Junkers even though we were at war with Germany. What is a HUGE game changer though is the re-introduction of common rail as it’s actually about 100 years old, but fell out of favor, but with Modern Electronics it’s been revolutionized, it’s taken old heavy low power Diesels and turned them into hot rods, there are Dirsel dragsters now using the Duramax pickup Diesel, something that’s possible because of common rail. That’s why I think in my opinion that a modern GA aircraft Diesel is possible, IF it incorporates computer controlled Common Rail injection, but maybe the computer is what makes Certification difficult. I know Cruising sailboats try to do without common rail because a lightning strike most probably will kill your engine and your not getting a new computer in the South Pacific.

I have found that pretty much anything that say’s Yetti on it is overpriced and as good as or better can be had for much less money. Having said that I have used one of the ice box coolers doing test flights on a military airplane that didn’t have AC but needed it badly. ‘They DO work, but it was my experience that they as any AC work best on an airplane that gets pulled out of a hangar, if the airplane is heat soaked from sitting on the ramp your likely going to use all the ice trying to remove that heat soak. I only used crushed ice as we had an ice machine at the plant, crushed ice lasted 30 min or so which is plenty of time for a normal flight to get to a cooler altitude where AC isn’t needed, but so far as working for hours? Not happening. Perhaps if you turned it off in the climb there would be ice left for the landing and taxi? Block ice will last longer of course, because it has a much reduced surface area so it melts slower, which means it doesn’t do as much cooling. More BTU as it’s denser, but spread over considerably longer time. Maybe a block of ice with all the excess space filled with crushed icewould be the ticket? Empty gallon milk jugs can be refrozen forever and of course are free. Oh, and if the water you dump in is very cold water that helps too, you have to have a half gallon or so of water for the pump to be underwater of course.

We have specialists here too, but it’s not required to install Avionics, but it is to repair them. If I were having new Avionics installed I’d try to make sure it’s an Avionics shop and that the installer is at least working under the supervision of an FCC license holder, not an A&P.

If they were trying to get out of their OEM cylinder problems, they didn’t buy much did they? Of course with the AD’s I guess ECI didn’t cost much?

I had forgotten that, but Conti just doesn’t seem to have a great rep with Cylinders, so I guess I hadn’t considered them. I wonder if Lycoming will answer with PMA Continental 550 cylinders? According to the people I worked with in GE the money is in parts, they pretty much give the new motors (big jets) away knowing that they will make their money on parts. In that business a competitor PMA’ing your parts is very disturbing. I wonder if Conti trying to get in on Lycoming parts is as big a shake up as it was for GE? Continental is Chinese owned, so I’d suspect that Gentleman’s agreements of times past likely don’t mean anything. I think if Lycoming built Conti cylinders that were quality build they would own the replacement cylinder market? But, why can’t Lycoming build their own cylinders? Angle valve cylinders go for almost twice what Parallel ones do, surely there is profit there?

Lycoming only had two Diesels I know of, one little single cylinder that burns Jet-A but isn’t a diesel, it’s a spark ignition engine that burns Jet-A because the military has been single fuel for decades, it’s similar to Mercury’s outboard that isn’t a Diesel engine, but will run on Diesel. It was built for the Navy that really, really didn’t want gasoline on the ship, but the seals needed an outboard https://www.mercurymarine.com/en/us/engines/outboard/diesel-outboard/diesel-outboard/ The Lycoming true Diesel is 205 HP drone motor for the Military, I assume it replaced the Rotax in the original Predator maybe? https://www.lycoming.com/engines/del-120 Itty bitty spark ignition Lycoming Jet-A motor https://www.lycoming.com/engines/el-005 Once you go bigger than that of course you see turbines like the Honeywell -10 in the Reaper

Maule built and I believe Certified the M-9 Diesel, then SMA folded leaving little Maule holding the bag. https://aeroresourcesinc.com/uploads/200406-2004 Maule M-9-230 Diesel.pdf Many have been bitten by the diesel “thing” There was I believe an STC for the Cessna 182, one of our dealers Africair was building them as fast as they could for Africa, and got left holding the bag too I think. In my opinion and it’s just an opinion, but I think it’s going to take common rail to make Diesel work for GA, and I think a common rail engine would work, a four stroke common rail at that. But we all know what opinions are worth.

I think the Zepplins had diesels, but they weren’t lightweight? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler-Benz_DB_602 I know the Germans built a Diesel bomber in WWII, but it didn’t work out, but don’t know specifics. I found this https://www.historynet.com/luftwaffes-high-flying-diesel/ And this on the engine, 6 cyl, 12 piston two stroke. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/junkers-jumo-207-d-v2-line-6-diesel-engine/nasm_A19660013000 Apparently it was an opposed piston engine like the USWWII submarine engine, that also didn’t work very well either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairbanks_Morse_38_8-1/8_diesel_engine

There are a couple of different versions of Lycoming 360’s if we ignore narrow vs wide deck. The parallel valve are all I believe 180 HP motors, the 200 HP are angle valve, think Hemi, as you have a J model I’m pretty sure you have an angle valve motor as I do. There are PMA parallel valve cylinders out there like Milleniums etc. but I think Lycoming is the only source of angle valve cylinders, and I think they are back ordered for a year I have heard. If that’s true then only ones available are overhauled ones, or have yours overhauled and my guess is yours may not be able to be overhauled, but that’s just a guess as I’m not familiar what the requirement for re-chroming is, or if it’s even do-able. I have never tried ordering angle valve cylinders, so I may be wrong.

It’s easy, I haven’t been in a few years though, best if the wind if from the East making your approach over the water, often in the afternoon the wind is from the west and the wind increases late afternoon. Used to be an Eagles nest off the East end of the runway, don’t carry excess speed on final. Landing East you can come in low over the water, landing West it’s over the trees with the Eagle’s nest. Parking can be tough as there isn’t much room on the paved area that on the South west end. I used to park in the grass on the North east end. Get out and walk it first though as there are soft sand spots. Bring tie downs. Having said that parking this time of year is much better than in Winter, so you have very good odds especially if you get in early, lots of day visitors. There is a Lady named Judy I believe that monitors intercomm and used to drive an old Checker cab, but now I think a junky van, but she can give you a ride to one of the golf cart rental places or wherever you want. It’s definitely a tourist trap, no doubt about that if your after more “old” Florida the Panhandle is better for that, but many don’t like old Florida. I used to fly into CDK every now and again and eat, I was one of the day visitors If you can’t tell I’m pushing you to get in early, Thunderstorms in the afternoon, onshore breeze and parking hard to get, plus this time of year at 4PM you will have sweat dripping off your nose just walking

Honestly, your only course of action if you want them “right” is to replace them. I wouldn’t though, I’d keep flying but start saving because it’s coming. It’s not if, but when. However it’s my understanding that for some reason angle valve cylinders are as rare as hens teeth. If true I can’t explain why. I believe there are no PMA angle valve cylinders? Could be wrong though.