mkosmo
Pattern Altitude
Story first:
Well, today was interesting. Went to go flying on the first pretty flying weekend day we've had in a while and I taxied across the field for gas. Life was good, took on 22 gallons of gas I've used over the past few weeks and went to go depart to parts unknown. Went to start the airplane and she wouldn't start for anything. I probably tried cranking 6 or 8 times (various intervals in between)... The starter would try and then eventually free-spin at various delays in my attempts to start. No indication of any ignition, no partial kicking, nothing. Eventually, after spending a half hour screwing with that, I decided I had looked like an idiot enough on the ramp and went in and asked the front desk to get me a tug for me an the airplane back to my parking. I hate paying for the tug... but at least my fuel purchase would have given me credit for all but a few dollars of the tow fee.
By now I just figured my battery wasn't spinning the prop fast enough and I'd need to charge or change the battery. The plan was to call the mechanic and let him take a look. The guy who came over to tug the airplane made a comment that he thought it was odd that the starter was still engaged (I thought it was fairly common knowledge that it wouldn't kick out if it didn't start) and was trying to convince me it was just a hung starter. He also made a comment about not feeling any compression... and that last bit got me worried. I didn't want to mess with it too much with the starter still mated, though.
Once he got me back to the other side of the field I figured I'd pull the upper cowling off to take a look before I called the shop tomorrow just to see if anything obvious was going on. It's probably worth noting that there was no leaking fluid under the aircraft on the ramp or in trail during the tow. While I had the upper cowl off, I decided to try starting one more time since I had nothing to lose and it had been a half hour or so since my last try. The blade didn't move two inches before she purred right to life. After a few seconds I shut back down (in hind sight I should have just let the battery charge then...) and put the upper cowl back on. She started up again after that and I let her run at 1k or so while the battery charged.
I'm now figuring the failure to start was something along the lines of vapor lock, but I'm having trouble with that diagnosis considering how cool it was out today and I've never had this issue with hot starting before on hotter days with hotter engines.
My question is really this: Are there any tightening specs for the cowl screws? It's a 76 172M and there are three fastener types: Quick turns on the firewall, coarse threads along the side, and some find threads up front. They're snug for now, but if there's a spec, I'd like to make sure I have them secure correctly before flying again. Otherwise I'll have to call the mechanic and pay him shop rate to tighten some screws lol
Well, today was interesting. Went to go flying on the first pretty flying weekend day we've had in a while and I taxied across the field for gas. Life was good, took on 22 gallons of gas I've used over the past few weeks and went to go depart to parts unknown. Went to start the airplane and she wouldn't start for anything. I probably tried cranking 6 or 8 times (various intervals in between)... The starter would try and then eventually free-spin at various delays in my attempts to start. No indication of any ignition, no partial kicking, nothing. Eventually, after spending a half hour screwing with that, I decided I had looked like an idiot enough on the ramp and went in and asked the front desk to get me a tug for me an the airplane back to my parking. I hate paying for the tug... but at least my fuel purchase would have given me credit for all but a few dollars of the tow fee.
By now I just figured my battery wasn't spinning the prop fast enough and I'd need to charge or change the battery. The plan was to call the mechanic and let him take a look. The guy who came over to tug the airplane made a comment that he thought it was odd that the starter was still engaged (I thought it was fairly common knowledge that it wouldn't kick out if it didn't start) and was trying to convince me it was just a hung starter. He also made a comment about not feeling any compression... and that last bit got me worried. I didn't want to mess with it too much with the starter still mated, though.
Once he got me back to the other side of the field I figured I'd pull the upper cowling off to take a look before I called the shop tomorrow just to see if anything obvious was going on. It's probably worth noting that there was no leaking fluid under the aircraft on the ramp or in trail during the tow. While I had the upper cowl off, I decided to try starting one more time since I had nothing to lose and it had been a half hour or so since my last try. The blade didn't move two inches before she purred right to life. After a few seconds I shut back down (in hind sight I should have just let the battery charge then...) and put the upper cowl back on. She started up again after that and I let her run at 1k or so while the battery charged.
I'm now figuring the failure to start was something along the lines of vapor lock, but I'm having trouble with that diagnosis considering how cool it was out today and I've never had this issue with hot starting before on hotter days with hotter engines.
My question is really this: Are there any tightening specs for the cowl screws? It's a 76 172M and there are three fastener types: Quick turns on the firewall, coarse threads along the side, and some find threads up front. They're snug for now, but if there's a spec, I'd like to make sure I have them secure correctly before flying again. Otherwise I'll have to call the mechanic and pay him shop rate to tighten some screws lol