Aviating Probs on my b-day

Lance F

Lance F

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Lance F
Mission today was to fly about 4 1/2 hours in my Mooney from Atlanta area to Long Island, NY (KISP). I was wheels up a bit after 6 am as planned. I immediately know something wasn't right with the engine. A glance at my engine monitor showed #4 EGT way high. I did a quick mag check expecting that cylinder to quit making fire on one or the other mags, but that wasn't what happen. #4 kept firing but at even higher EGTs when on one mag or the other.
I kept going up to my assigned cruise of 7k, trimmed the plane and tried leaning. Engine got rough way before it should have. Told approach I had to go back. Got back to 9A1, put the plane in the hanger, jumped in my truck and drove to Hartsfield, got on Delta to LGA and to my customer roughly on time. Not nearly as fun as flying myself.
This weekend we'll try to diagnose and solve this, but it was a frustrating morning.
Rant off.
PS Although I really wanted to help I'm glad now I didn't commit to helping those two beagles. I would have stranded them.
 
Lance F said:
Mission today was to fly about 4 1/2 hours in my Mooney from Atlanta area to Long Island, NY (KISP). I was wheels up a bit after 6 am as planned. I immediately know something wasn't right with the engine. A glance at my engine monitor showed #4 EGT way high. I did a quick mag check expecting that cylinder to quit making fire on one or the other mags, but that wasn't what happen. #4 kept firing but at even higher EGTs when on one mag or the other.
I kept going up to my assigned cruise of 7k, trimmed the plane and tried leaning. Engine got rough way before it should have. Told approach I had to go back. Got back to 9A1, put the plane in the hanger, jumped in my truck and drove to Hartsfield, got on Delta to LGA and to my customer roughly on time. Not nearly as fun as flying myself.
This weekend we'll try to diagnose and solve this, but it was a frustrating morning.
Rant off.
PS Although I really wanted to help I'm glad now I didn't commit to helping those two beagles. I would have stranded them.
Click to expand...

Piece of crap in the spider or injector nozzle most likely.
 
No fun, Lance. Glad that you managed to get an alternate. Hope that it's nothing bad. I'd agree with Henning, something's clogging your #4 nozzle most likely.
 
I'm with Henning -- partly clogged injector problem is most likely. That would make the affected cylinder leaner than the others and give you the symptoms noted.

"It's perfect -- it explains everything!" -- Gregory House, MD
 
Didn't you have the engine quite some where over VA a few years ago? Mags IIRC. Good move returning to base. That last minute delta fare had to be a killer.
 
Saturday we'll look at the injectors. That's simple enough. I just hope we find something AND how it got there.

This was a lot less scary than the total engine shutdown (yes due to mags). Sure I thought about going on...but not for very long. With the nice new scale change you can make on flightaware now, you can see my U-turn.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N57039
 
I can close this issue now. This morning we pulled the #4 FI nozzle and sure enough there was a tiny piece of crud in it. Cleaned the nozzle and reassembled. Did a test flight and the engine was smooth as silk. It's amazing the effect that tiny obstruction had.
 
Lance F said:
I can close this issue now. This morning we pulled the #4 FI nozzle and sure enough there was a tiny piece of crud in it. Cleaned the nozzle and reassembled. Did a test flight and the engine was smooth as silk. It's amazing the effect that tiny obstruction had.
Click to expand...

According to GAMI, the most common source of debris in injectors is mechanics rags used to clean them. Have you had an annual lately?

And in the "things to try next time folder" I have found on at least one occasion that cycling the mixture from ICO to full rich at full throttle/RPM will sometimes clear a partially plugged injector.
 
Lance F said:
I can close this issue now. This morning we pulled the #4 FI nozzle and sure enough there was a tiny piece of crud in it. Cleaned the nozzle and reassembled. Did a test flight and the engine was smooth as silk. It's amazing the effect that tiny obstruction had.
Click to expand...

gismo said:
According to GAMI, the most common source of debris in injectors is mechanics rags used to clean them. Have you had an annual lately?

And in the "things to try next time folder" I have found on at least one occasion that cycling the mixture from ICO to full rich at full throttle/RPM will sometimes clear a partially plugged injector.
Click to expand...

It depends on what's clogging it. In the case of my Aztec's right engine, they were just clogged due to number of years without cleaning. We couldn't find any debris in it, but my problems weren't quite as severe as Lance's. Then again, maybe they were and I just didn't know it since I didn't have an engine monitor to tell me.
 
gismo said:
According to GAMI, the most common source of debris in injectors is mechanics rags used to clean them. Have you had an annual lately?

And in the "things to try next time folder" I have found on at least one occasion that cycling the mixture from ICO to full rich at full throttle/RPM will sometimes clear a partially plugged injector.
Click to expand...

No, the last annual was October 08. The injectors were out and cleaned at that time, but the engine's run perfectly for over 100 hours since then.

Whatever it was, it was quite small. You could see it when you held the nozzle up to the light. It appeared to be more spheroid than linear (I assume rag lint would be linear.) I've heard of tank sealant causing this, but that's never happened before. Should there be a next time, I will try cycling the mixture to blow it out.
 
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