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Smell of burnt toast in cockpit?


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Anyone ever experienced this? On Sunday, I was flying and was going through a hole to get on top of a cloud deck and I think I was climbing too intensively at practically max power and VX. At one point, I smelt burnt toast and immediately throttled back a bit and the smell seemed to have gone away. 

Doing a little research, I found this passage, quoted from here: https://books.google.com/books?id=bGUok8wPJHIC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=burnt+toast+smell+in+cockpit&source=bl&ots=V50gDnhhRO&sig=fJMtNi2fhZZDVM9thbSzRngBg04&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwis9rerh8zRAhVl2IMKHcdgB7EQ6AEIPzAI#v=onepage&q=burnt toast smell in cockpit&f=false

"Another very noticeable odor in the cockpit is that of overheating or burning wires. And, it generally means trouble. The smell of burning wire insulation is quite pungent. Some wire insulation may even produce toxic fumes that some say smells like burnt toast. So if you should smell burning wiring it is best to treat it is an electrical emergency..."

I got to my destination and back fine with no further smells, etc, but am a bit concerned that I may have caused some damage by the aggressive climb? It was quite cold outside and my CHTs were ok (although at one point one of the cylinders did touch 400, but that does happen sometime in this M20G...), but on the way back one of my EGT gauges kept oscillating strangely.

Any thoughts/ideas? If I were to have a mechanic check this out, where would I have them look?

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If your seeing goofy EGT data, that may be a hint...

Take a look at what happened to the sensor or it's insulation.

If the EGT sensor is loose in its hole, it will be leaking exhaust which is quite hot at that point.  

You may be smelling exhaust, or something burning or getting burned by the hot exhaust.

Are you able to uncowl and look?

Otherwise, it's a good time to talk with your mechanic...

PP thoughts, not a mechanic.

Best regards,

-a-

Edited by carusoam
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If you are comfortable removing your own cowling, I would do that first and have a look inside yourself.  Look around all of the exhaust pipes (that is where the EGT probes will be).  You will be looking for obvious signs of heat distress (melted wires, usually brown or black discoloration) as well as exhaust leaks (often white powdery deposits on the exhaust components).

And it may be nothing other than a general smell of heated components. A Vx climb at full power for an extended period of time will tend to heat things up a lot.  If you had the heater on, you may just be smelling hot metal at low airflow.

But of course, you should check it out to be sure.

Good luck, let us know what you find.

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1 minute ago, Andy95W said:

If you are comfortable removing your own cowling, I would do that first and have a look inside yourself.  Look around all of the exhaust pipes (that is where the EGT probes will be).  You will be looking for obvious signs of heat distress (melted wires, usually brown or black discoloration) as well as exhaust leaks (often white powdery deposits on the exhaust components).

And it may be nothing other than a general smell of heated components. A Vx climb at full power for an extended period of time will tend to heat things up a lot.  If you had the heater on, you may just be smelling hot metal at low airflow.

But of course, you should check it out to be sure.

Good luck, let us know what you find.

Thank you. I did have the heat on, so maybe it simply was just hot metal with the airflow. I had the cowling off the next day and things looked generally okay, but I'll take a closer look at the EGT probes and heat distress. Thanks!

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Thank you. I did have the heat on, so maybe it simply was just hot metal with the airflow. I had the cowling off the next day and things looked generally okay, but I'll take a closer look at the EGT probes and heat distress. Thanks!

I have smelled the burnt toast when I have the heat on (usually worse on the first usage of heat for the season).

I always attributed it to dust bunnies building up in the heat exchanger or in the tubing to the cockpit.It was either that or one of my passengers actually has a piece of burnt toast stuck in a fat fold.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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