arkvet
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- Joined
- Sep 15, 2014
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I don't even know where to start. First off I took my first flying lesson last August (5 months ago). About 2 months into training I had an opportunity to buy a local 68 180D that has since served as a great trainer with a little utility to boot considering the great useful load. The engine was factory new in 2005 and had ~ 1650 hours on it when I bought it. I had a pre-buy performed where compressions were checked and it was checked thoroughly for any corrosion. Compressions were high 70's on all cylinders and the engine ran great. The log books were very thorough with absolutely no gaps where the plane sat for any extended period of time. By looking at hours between oil changes this plane never sat more than a week or two during brief periods. It was flown regularly!
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago... I was holding short of 22 at my local airport doing my runup when the HP just wasn't there. Static RPM was 1800ish and I could tell something was wrong. Throttle back and she vibrated pretty bad. Ran mag checks and hey were ok. Tried leaning and multiple power changes and nothing. Had a mechanic come look at it and they found some badly fouled plugs on cylinder #4. Cleaned them up and flew the plane. It was fine. Whew I thought! Dodged a bullet there as I was expected a busted jug or something of that nature.
That wasn't enough to make me turn the page and I followed up with the mechanic's recommendation to fly it to their shop for a more thorough check-up. Yesterday am I flew it over and they found a few leaky gaskets on the intake of 3/4 cylinders and were briefly optimistic that that was the source for some difficult starts / fouled plugs / etc... Before moving forward though they broke out the borescope... and that's where my bad day got worse. The first cylinder checked had a pretty significant level of rust / pitting. It was enough to cause some concern so I told them to go ahead and pull the left side cylinders... Sure enough the internal parts beyond the cylinders were pretty worn (cam lobes?) and it just didn't look like an engine that had a tremendous amount of life left... Nothing that posed a major safety concern (catastrophic failure) but enough to give me some big decisions. I could have my 4 cylinders pulled and rebuilt / replaced and put them back on an engine that might only give me 100 hours or consider a Major.
I just couldn't justify spending several thousand dollars on a top end "band aid" for a high time engine... so I'm opting for a complete major OH which will be the best economical decision for me in the long run. Fortunately I believe I paid close to a "timed out" price for the plane to begin with so I don't feel like I will lose out in the long run if/when I sell the plane in the next few years.
I just wanted to share with you guys my experience. Lesson learned??? I guess a borescope would have been really helpful a few months ago. However I am very thankful that I didn't pay for a 600 hour engine / plane and get this news! So maybe there are perks to buying a high time engine as it lowers the pain level when news like this comes up.
On a side note I have to mention that my plane has a full Tanis 100 engine preheat installed and I have read the warnings about leaving it plugged in all the time. I have no way of knowing what the preheat habits were in it's previous life but I have to wonder there's a history that could have contributed to this??? You can bet your life I'll be paying the pocket change $ to get a GSM remote switch to turn preheat on only as needed in the future.
This sure is making that Stratus 2 on my wish list look pretty cheap!
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago... I was holding short of 22 at my local airport doing my runup when the HP just wasn't there. Static RPM was 1800ish and I could tell something was wrong. Throttle back and she vibrated pretty bad. Ran mag checks and hey were ok. Tried leaning and multiple power changes and nothing. Had a mechanic come look at it and they found some badly fouled plugs on cylinder #4. Cleaned them up and flew the plane. It was fine. Whew I thought! Dodged a bullet there as I was expected a busted jug or something of that nature.
That wasn't enough to make me turn the page and I followed up with the mechanic's recommendation to fly it to their shop for a more thorough check-up. Yesterday am I flew it over and they found a few leaky gaskets on the intake of 3/4 cylinders and were briefly optimistic that that was the source for some difficult starts / fouled plugs / etc... Before moving forward though they broke out the borescope... and that's where my bad day got worse. The first cylinder checked had a pretty significant level of rust / pitting. It was enough to cause some concern so I told them to go ahead and pull the left side cylinders... Sure enough the internal parts beyond the cylinders were pretty worn (cam lobes?) and it just didn't look like an engine that had a tremendous amount of life left... Nothing that posed a major safety concern (catastrophic failure) but enough to give me some big decisions. I could have my 4 cylinders pulled and rebuilt / replaced and put them back on an engine that might only give me 100 hours or consider a Major.
I just couldn't justify spending several thousand dollars on a top end "band aid" for a high time engine... so I'm opting for a complete major OH which will be the best economical decision for me in the long run. Fortunately I believe I paid close to a "timed out" price for the plane to begin with so I don't feel like I will lose out in the long run if/when I sell the plane in the next few years.
I just wanted to share with you guys my experience. Lesson learned??? I guess a borescope would have been really helpful a few months ago. However I am very thankful that I didn't pay for a 600 hour engine / plane and get this news! So maybe there are perks to buying a high time engine as it lowers the pain level when news like this comes up.
On a side note I have to mention that my plane has a full Tanis 100 engine preheat installed and I have read the warnings about leaving it plugged in all the time. I have no way of knowing what the preheat habits were in it's previous life but I have to wonder there's a history that could have contributed to this??? You can bet your life I'll be paying the pocket change $ to get a GSM remote switch to turn preheat on only as needed in the future.
This sure is making that Stratus 2 on my wish list look pretty cheap!
