FFS. I need a new hobby.

Jim K said:
Eventually I got smart and dropped the gear.
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I was wondering if you would to find a boat anchor for it for break-in. We had to fly with the wheel pants off the RV(s) for break-in. And before anyone asks - No, my nickname is not 'wheel'.
 
Congrats for a job well done!

On another note.... Looking at the speed trace on your FlightAware data, the yellow line looks like a very ominus ECG trace... It that was your ECG, you would have a major SI in your medical future. LOL
 
Didn't have much time yesterday, so I made a quick hop to DNV to fill her up with $4.57 100LL.

Felt really good to push her back into my hangar. Going into that empty hangar has been really depressing for the last five months. I know that airplanes are inanimate, but somehow I feel like she's happy to be home.

IMG_20250325_173301351.jpg
 
Was planning on flying mom down to see a cousins college softball tournament sunday near MTO. Thought I'd see 35e burning holes. But weather doesn't looks good.
 
So did I save any money through all of this?

I spent about $9,000 with Airpower. This was most of the parts, and about $4,000 of that was the cam kit.
I spent a couple hundred dollars on the special sauces Lycoming calls out. I'm hoping I can still use all this stuff on the RV engine.
Another couple hundred on special tools, of which there are surprisingly few. Cylinder base wrenches, piston pin pusher, ring compressor...that's about it. Everything else is pretty common tools.
Divco wound up getting about $2,500, assuming they don't condemn my core cases.
G&N's bill was just under $11,000. That was for inspecting and reconditioning all of the steel parts and overhauling the cylinders. About $7,500 of that was parts. Valves, guides, seats, bushings. They also supplied the pistons & rings.
I probably spent $1,000 on shipping, and another $125 for Aircraft Specialties to re-overhaul that one rod.

All together right about $24,000. I gave my mechanic $1,000, which if I'm honest feels too low. He was thinking a couple hundred as he didn't really do much, and the couple hours he spent helping he was on the clock with the shop and added those hours onto my R&R bill.

So $25,000 out the door. and roughly 5 months.

$55,000 and six months was the quote from G&N, and things that normally get reused like the cam and the crank gear would've been extra, so it probably would've been closer to $60K.

So I got "paid" ~$35,000 for my efforts and learned a lot. I logged 229 hours on the engine work. $152/hour...not too bad. I bet I could do it in half the time if I was to do it again. Of course....no warranty. I've got 6 hours on it now. I'll feel better after 10. I'll feel much better after 25. I'll feel comfortable after 100.

R&R will be around $10K. I worked about 20 hours helping with that. I'm not counting the muffler shroud or spark plugs in the costs as those things would've needed replaced anyway.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to doing the engine for my RV.
 
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Jim,

Awesome job doing all this, and thank you for taking us along on this journey. I have learned a lot, and I might consider overhauling my own engine, with the help of my IA, when the time comes.

I think this whole thread deserves to be seen for the forseeable future, so my recommendation would be to have it pinned in the maintenance bay section.
 
Thats very encouraging. I think having the right A&P cant be overemphasized in certified ownership. I could probably manage the cost of a shop doing an overhaul. I could probably tolerate the time it would take to get it done. I dont think I could handle the yuuge bill combined with the downtime if I just had a shop do it at their leisure, so Im glad you were able to minimize both. Unless I find a good A&P quickly, the Cessna has got to go.
 
AV8R_87 said:
Jim,

Awesome job doing all this, and thank you for taking us along on this journey. I have learned a lot, and I might consider overhauling my own engine,
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I have enjoyed following the journey too, and I also learned something. If I ever have a situation like this I will call Curtis Boulware to come get it and when he is done, bring it back, tell me everything he did and pick up his check.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Pyrrhic as they may be.
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Not this one. There's an airplane flying now that wasn't before, and the guy flying it knows that engine works. Win win. Often there are cases where the victory is meaningless, or you win the battles but lose the war, and I'm normally the cynical one in any group, but the win still sometimes happens.
 
Jim K said:
So did I save any money through all of this?

I spent about $9,000 with Airpower. This was most of the parts, and about $4,000 of that was the cam kit.
I spent a couple hundred dollars on the special sauces Lycoming calls out. I'm hoping I can still use all this stuff on the RV engine.
Another couple hundred on special tools, of which there are surprisingly few. Cylinder base wrenches, piston pin pusher, ring compressor...that's about it. Everything else is pretty common tools.
Divco wound up getting about $2,500, assuming they don't condemn my core cases.
G&N's bill was just under $11,000. That was for inspecting and reconditioning all of the steel parts and overhauling the cylinders. About $7,500 of that was parts. Valves, guides, seats, bushings. They also supplied the pistons & rings.
I probably spent $1,000 on shipping, and another $125 for Aircraft Specialties to re-overhaul that one rod.

All together right about $24,000. I gave my mechanic $1,000, which if I'm honest feels too low. He was thinking a couple hundred as he didn't really do much, and the couple hours he spent helping he was on the clock with the shop and added those hours onto my R&R bill.

So $25,000 out the door. and roughly 5 months.

$55,000 and six months was the quote from G&N, and things that normally get reused like the cam and the crank gear would've been extra, so it probably would've been closer to $60K.

So I got "paid" ~$35,000 for my efforts and learned a lot. I logged 229 hours on the engine work. $152/hour...not too bad. I bet I could do it in half the time if I was to do it again. Of course....no warranty. I've got 6 hours on it now. I'll feel better after 10. I'll feel much better after 25. I'll feel comfortable after 100.

R&R will be around $10K. I worked about 20 hours helping with that. I'm not counting the muffler shroud or spark plugs in the costs as those things would've needed replaced anyway.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to doing the engine for my RV.
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What made you decide to overhaul the jugs rather than go new?

For all you had to deal with, especially the casework. I would have expected worse. Has me thinking of buying a core and overhauling an o360 instead of selling
 
Racerx said:
What made you decide to overhaul the jugs rather than go new?

For all you had to deal with, especially the casework. I would have expected worse. Has me thinking of buying a core and overhauling an o360 instead of selling
Click to expand...
New angle valve 360/540 cylinders are not available at any price. Mine also only had 1200hrs on their first run, so it would've been a waste to trash them anyway. I'm not sure what part of the bill is attributable to the cylinders, but probably around $1200 ea? I think new ones are about $4k each.
 
Jim K said:
New angle valve 360/540 cylinders are not available at any price. Mine also only had 1200hrs on their first run, so it would've been a waste to trash them anyway. I'm not sure what part of the bill is attributable to the cylinders, but probably around $1200 ea? I think new ones are about $4k each.
Click to expand...
I knew they were getting hard to come by. But damn!
 
Racerx said:
I knew they were getting hard to come by. But damn!
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I didn't pursue it because I was planning to reuse mine, but I heard they are backordered about a year. G&n said (i think PG does this too) that they will generally overhaul a cylinder once.

I think parallel valve cylinders are actually available and much cheaper because there's a couple companies making them. Lycoming is the only source for the angle valve at the moment.
 
Jim K said:
So I got "paid" ~$35,000 for my efforts and learned a lot. I logged 229 hours on the engine work. $152/hour...not too bad.
Click to expand...
Does that 229 hours count the time on the phone hassling suppliers, the prep time reading the overhaul manual and preparing yourself for the project, etc? Or is it strictly wrenching time?

iamtheari said:
TL;DR. What is your new hobby?
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Wrenching on airplanes. :D
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Does that 229 hours count the time on the phone hassling suppliers, the prep time reading the overhaul manual and preparing yourself for the project, etc? Or is it strictly wrenching time
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No, that's pretty much everything, including searching SB's/ SI's/AD's, ordering parts, reading the book and trying to understand the next step. That's largely why I'd say i could do it in half the time next time.

The Lyco Direct Drive OH Manual is pretty good, but also covers a lot of different engines. It takes some time to make sure you make sure you're reading the right paragraph, and the drawings are seldom on the same page as the instructions. I often had to reference the IPM for things like "how many bolts of what length go here with what type of washers?".

That, and things like the pushrod tubes that took a lot of experimenting to figure out a procedure that worked. I put the windage tray brackets on backwards, which i didn't catch until after I had safety wired them. I also forgot the plug for an unused shaft in the accessory case. I found it after I had torqued the case and installed and safetied the fuel pump, so I got to re-do all of that. Those were my two biggest time wasting mistakes.
 
So, based on your figures an engine shop would be taking in about $300/hr for someone experienced to do the work.

Not too shabby.
 
Albany Tom said:
Not this one. There's an airplane flying now that wasn't before, and the guy flying it knows that engine works. Win win. Often there are cases where the victory is meaningless, or you win the battles but lose the war, and I'm normally the cynical one in any group, but the win still sometimes happens.
Click to expand...
All it took to do a routine interval maintenance on this roughly $150,000 value vehicle was an additional $35,000, plus some base level of mechanical tools and shop space available, and what,100 or so hours of time by the owner (convert that to shop rate time). And the loss of use of said vehicle and occupying said shop for some five months.

Is it any wonder everyone doesn't fly their own airplane? :rolleyes:

Jim, I can't tell you how appreciative I am to you for proving that it can be done. No snark: you're a hero.
 
DJTorrente said:
All it took to do a routine interval maintenance on this roughly $150,000 value vehicle was an additional $35,000, plus some base level of mechanical tools and shop space available, and what,100 or so hours of time by the owner (convert that to shop rate time). And the loss of use of said vehicle and occupying said shop for some five months.

Is it any wonder everyone doesn't fly their own airplane? :rolleyes:

Jim, I can't tell you how appreciative I am to you for proving that it can be done. No snark: you're a hero.
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I won't call him a hero. That's reserved for guys that successfully land a plane with a windscreen covered in oil with his family on board....wait...

But I'm also appreciative of this. I think I'll just sell my plane. But am going to look for a core io540 for the pa32. Just wish the RV 10 would like the angle valve engine more so I could overhaul the current engine for an RV 10.
 
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DJTorrente said:
All it took to do a routine interval maintenance on this roughly $150,000 value vehicle was an additional $35,000, plus some base level of mechanical tools and shop space available, and what,100 or so hours of time by the owner (convert that to shop rate time). And the loss of use of said vehicle and occupying said shop for some five months.

Is it any wonder everyone doesn't fly their own airplane? :rolleyes:

Jim, I can't tell you how appreciative I am to you for proving that it can be done. No snark: you're a hero.
Click to expand...

I would not call

Jim K said:
This ****ing airplane.

Had a small oil leak behind the prop. Decided to wait for annual, assuming it was a crank seal. Mechanic pulled the prop and found the plug over the governor shaft loose & leaking. Same exact failure as 2.5 years ago..
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Routine interval maintenance.
 
Jim K said:
You all are too easily impressed. I'm just a cheap, stubborn bastard who can follow instructions ;)
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I thought it was type A personality that doesn't like other people touching your ****....or is that just reserved for strangers in Alabama?
 
Jim K said:
You all are too easily impressed. I'm just a cheap, stubborn bastard who can follow instructions ;)
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I’ve seen plenty of the former and more than a few of the latter, but someone that’s both is very rare.
 
Jim K said:
You all are too easily impressed. I'm just a cheap, stubborn bastard who can follow instructions ;)
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Uh oh... I resemble that remark...
jsstevens said:
Never, ever, ever underestimate the power of that.
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...To temporarily ruin your life. :rofl: Last time I was a cheap stubborn bastard I thought I was going to adjust a carb and ended up mostly rebuilding the whole engine, and kinda regretting it a little. LOL

I regret it less now that it's been running fine since. The regret was mostly when it was a big pile of parts and I kept having to go deeper and deeper into it as I found more stuff to fix "while I was in there". In my case, though, it probably could have been done by the shop in a few days, so I didn't save any time. I certainly saved money, though, so that's a win. I'll probably spend it on my airplane's engine eventually.
 
Put 4 hours on today. Went up to OSH to see the museum. It was cool. The first Cirrus, the RV-1, Spaceship One, VariViggen. Mockup of Voyager was super cool too. Didn't see Turbulence. Stopped by BUU on the way home for cheap gas and my second Fly WI passport stamp.

Anyway, engine was flawless. 11 hours on it now. It's burned about 1qt in the 8 hours since the first change. I'm honestly a little bit concerned about how much oil it's NOT burning. The only other fault I can find with it is the oil temp wants to stay about 160. We still need to verify the temp gauge reading. Possible these are related.

Oh, and the other problem is it's near impossible to keep the damn thing out of the yellow arc.
 
Jim K said:
Anyway, engine was flawless. 11 hours on it now. It's burned about 1qt in the 8 hours since the first change. I'm honestly a little bit concerned about how much oil it's NOT burning. The only other fault I can find with it is the oil temp wants to stay about 160. We still need to verify the temp gauge reading. Possible these are related.
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Let me know what you figure out. I've got an engine that is burning almost no oil despite being freshly overhauled (about 45 hours on it at the moment) and the damned oil temp won't get above 150-160F, even after verifying the probe/gauge and putting a winterization plate that occludes flow to the cooler. Ly-Con and about five other A&Ps are mystified. Once I figure it out, I'm going to sell it as a solution for folks with engines running too hot!
 
AvNavCom said:
Let me know what you figure out. I've got an engine that is burning almost no oil despite being freshly overhauled (about 45 hours on it at the moment) and the damned oil temp won't get above 150-160F, even after verifying the probe/gauge and putting a winterization plate that occludes flow to the cooler. Ly-Con and about five other A&Ps are mystified. Once I figure it out, I'm going to sell it as a solution for folks with engines running too hot!
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Leave the cowl plugs in.
 
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