Broken plane....

tdager

tdager

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LittleIronPilot
Well it seems I get to have my first down-time with my aircraft.

From the day I bought it three months ago it has flown/performed flawlessly.

Today I took up a good friend and his girlfriend for her first flight. We flew from my home base, Clayton County-Tara Field (4A7) to Winder (KWDR). Well we overflew Winder and then I took her over Lake Lanier, then it was back to land at Winder and have lunch at the Spitfire Grill.

After a wonderful meal we were off for some bumpy-bumps with the afternoon heating really cooking in the Atlanta area. I got back, taxied to the fuel pumps, saw my passengers off and fueled the plane.

Now the fun begins...for some reason it would not start. It would turn over, but it did not want to seem to fire. I was thinking I had flooded it so I pulled the mixture to clear the engine, pushed it back in and tried again. It tried to fire a few more times then "bam" it fired.....BACKWARDS! I was like WTF? I then tried again and all I got was the spinning whine of the starter. It was not engaging at all. Oh crap...I broke me plane! :no:

Well fortunately I was home and I called my A&P and he drove up with another mechanic, and IA I know and they took a quick look. Yup...something broke though fortunately not the motor to their best knowledge.

I have no idea how much this is going to cost...but fortunately I have a great mechanic that is fair in pricing, so hopefully not too much. I am still bummed though, especially since I was going to fly to Columbia, SC Monday morning for work, now I have to drive. UGH!!!

All of my flying friends told me "welcome to the club" and that all things considered it is not too bad. It should not cost too much and it happened at home....when something breaks that is at least the best one can do.












Somebody hug me. :( *sigh*
 
Welcome to the life of being a rich, privileged, private pilot, airplane owner! :D

Tom, I'm just glad ya made it back down and ya didn't have problems while aloft. Hopefully, it will be a simple and cheap fix.

Now, I'm really ticked ya didn't fly over Flowery Branch and wave!!! :mad:


:goofy:
 
Ouch, sorry to hear.

I just flew from LZU in the bonanza, aside from the direct 23 knots of gusting crosswind, slight windsheer, and 96 degree temps, it was a great day to fly.

:)
 
BonanzaDriver said:
Ouch, sorry to hear.

I just flew from LZU in the bonanza, aside from the direct 23 knots of gusting crosswind, slight windsheer, and 96 degree temps, it was a great day to fly.

:)
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LOL...tell me about it, the winds picked up something fierce. My wife commented that it was weird to have such heat and wind, very unusual for Georgia.
 
Well we pulled the starter off today and spun the prop. The starter drive is not spinning...so it looks like I sheared something in it.

So we are going to pull it off tomorrow and send it out. So far the quotes for a rebuild are running around $750 bucks.

Let this be a lesson...do NOT over prime a warm O470! I feel like such a moron.
 
tdager said:
Let this be a lesson...do NOT over prime a warm O470! I feel like such a moron.
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Well, lessons can be expensive, but at least all this one cost you was some time and money..:D
 
Hang in there Tom, there is a difference between a renter and an owner and this is part of it.....sigh.
 
bbchien said:
Hang in there Tom, there is a difference between a renter and an owner and this is part of it.....sigh.
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Yeah Bruce I know.

The funny thing is that the wife is taking it all in stride. As a matter of fact her response was "It could have been a lot worse".

On a bright note, once it is fixed we will be moving to a hangar at the fly-in community we bought property at. A friend is renting out a corner of his large, and empty, hangar to me. So the bird will be closer, in a hangar with power, and I on grass....a nice silver lining.
 
Finishing up week 2 of my annual. Both exhausts are on the other side of the state for overhaul. Yep, join the club ;)
 
I was ready to start the Warner on my Fairchild, could not get it to start, now both of my mags are at Savage Magneto srevice for overhaul 425 pluss parts each.
 
Yep, Join the club!! My 1957 172 New Lyc 0360 cs prop New fire wall foward and less than 50 hrs on it. The prop governer decided to take a crap and the carb accelerator pump decided to get a dead spot in it. So My plane I waited for 2yrs to get back is down waiting for the prop and the carberator to get back.Thank goodness they were under warranty.

Jon
 
Wow dogman...that would suck!
 
Well my mechanic and I spent a bit of time today with the plane....and unfortunately we have determined that the engine must be pulled to get the starter adapter/angle/drive thing-a-ma-bob out. *sigh*

A very expensive and valuable lesson has been learned.

Hopefully we can have it fixed before vacation the second week of July.

I guess it could always be worse, I saw a nice turbo-charged plane that tried to taxi across some grass onto a concrete slab collapse its nose-gear and curl all three blades. That is going to be expensive!
 
tdager said:
Well my mechanic and I spent a bit of time today with the plane....and unfortunately we have determined that the engine must be pulled to get the starter adapter/angle/drive thing-a-ma-bob out. *sigh*

A very expensive and valuable lesson has been learned.

Hopefully we can have it fixed before vacation the second week of July.
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Do you have a 0-300/C145? with the angle drive starter?

If So, the starter drive can be removed for overhaul without removing the engine. (remove the vac pump first)

If you have questions PM me
 
NC19143 said:
Do you have a 0-300/C145? with the angle drive starter?

If So, the starter drive can be removed for overhaul without removing the engine. (remove the vac pump first)

If you have questions PM me
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Nope...O470, with one funky adapter deal. From what we can see, and what I have been told on the Cessna Pilots Forum, the motor must be removed, or at least loosened and "hung" away from the firewall a few inches.
 
Interesting development. My mechanic recommended another mechanic look at the plane, since we both thought the engine would have to come out.

The other mechanic started running through a mental exercise with me tonight about the starter drive and why he believes (but will be confirming tomorrow) that simply spinning the propeller will not turn the starter drive. He stated there is a spring in the drive and that the centripetal force of the spinning starter forces the shaft in the starter drive to engage the engine and when I let off the starter a spring pulls the shaft back.

He said if I had turned the propeller and the starter drive had turned, it would mean the starter would be constantly spinning. He said the other mechanic *may* be right, but he literally had almost the same thing happen a few days ago on a Baron with twin 470's and it turns out that the starter had been blown, not the starter drive.

So we are "borrowing" a new starter and are going to put it on Wednesday and see what happens. With any luck I just chewed up the starter.
 
tdager said:
So we are "borrowing" a new starter and are going to put it on Wednesday and see what happens. With any luck I just chewed up the starter.
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Good luck. Hope it works.
 
tdager said:
Let this be a lesson...do NOT over prime a warm O470! I feel like such a moron.
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Tom,

Don't prime a warm O-470 at all. Mixture lean, throttle full open, and it oughtta start in about 2-3 blades. When it catches, mixture rich, throttle idle. Heck, our 182 starts better hot (using this method) than it does cold!

Oh, and you should listen to Pilotcast 18 with our own "A&P Tom" Downey. For some reason, after we recorded that show, the 182 seemed to start a lot easier in all situations! :yes:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Tom,

Don't prime a warm O-470 at all. Mixture lean, throttle full open, and it oughtta start in about 2-3 blades. When it catches, mixture rich, throttle idle. Heck, our 182 starts better hot (using this method) than it does cold!

Oh, and you should listen to Pilotcast 18 with our own "A&P Tom" Downey. For some reason, after we recorded that show, the 182 seemed to start a lot easier in all situations! :yes:
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Thanks Kent. Yeah I am learning now from a lot of 182 owners to never prime a warm O470....like I said, one expensive lesson learned.

BTW...the saga continues.

It appears that, yes Virginia, there is a broken starter adapter and that my starter may have contributed to it. So I get to replace both! Wooohooo! :rolleyes:

It is planned to be done tomorrow, so hopefully I will be back in the skies tomorrow evening!
 
tdager said:
It appears that, yes Virginia, there is a broken starter adapter and that my starter may have contributed to it. So I get to replace both! Wooohooo! :rolleyes:

It is planned to be done tomorrow, so hopefully I will be back in the skies tomorrow evening!
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Sorry to hear that it's going to be expensive, but at least it sounds like it should be repaired soon. My fear about owning is not only the expense, but also hearing at times about how long it can take to get repaired and back in the air.
 
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