Tweets and Spins

[Colonel Sanders]

An engine with those hours, that time spent sitting,
and those problems needs a teardown.

I know TC hates them, but I would do the field overhaul.

You and the A&P tear the engine down. Send the
clamshells, crank and rods off to a shop for inspection
and overhaul. Replace the cylinder assemblies and
cam and lifters with new from Lycoming. Replace
the accessories (mags, carb, alternator, starter,
vacuum pump) with new.

That would be an awesome engine, for much less
than a big-name overhaul. And perfectly legal in
the USA.

[cgartly]

An engine with those hours, that time spent sitting,
and those problems needs a teardown.

In my heart I know that's what it needs, I was just hoping to defer for a season of flying.

I know TC hates them, but I would do the field overhaul.

The TC MDM that did the import on our 172 (which was a field overhaul) said the rules changed when the CARS came out to allow AME's to do field overhaul's of simple piston engines.

You and the A&P tear the engine down. Send the
clamshells, crank and rods off to a shop for inspection
and overhaul. Replace the cylinder assemblies and
cam and lifters with new from Lycoming. Replace
the accessories (mags, carb, alternator, starter,
vacuum pump) with new.

That would be an awesome engine, for much less
than a big-name overhaul. And perfectly legal in
the USA.

That's pretty much what I'm going to do, except the alternator and starter have less than 100 hrs on them so they will go back on as removed and the cylinder assemblies are Superior instead of Lycoming, the deal was too good to pass up and turned out to be better given they have the 125hp pistons in them. I know the Superior cylinders are hardened steel instead of nitrided but I fly at least once if not twice a week so I don't think corrosion will be a factor.

I put a new cam and lifters in the spreadsheet I created but my A&P thinks I should just have them refaced. I'm still leaning towards replacement with new as I don't want to deal with the risk of having to split the case again before TBO due to worn cam or lifters. My understanding so far is that the cam/lifters seem to be the weaker link in the bottom end. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Thanks for all of the good advice!

[Colonel Sanders]

Personally I'd go with new Lycoming cylinders
instead of aftermarket - they've had a lot of
bad problems.

And I'd go with new cam/lifters instead of
reground, but that's just me.

Cam/flat tappet lifters are such a problem on
the Lycomings, the factory recently went to
roller lifters to try to solve the problem. It's
too bad you can't retrofit roller lifters. For a
privately (and infrequently) flown aircraft, I
think it might be a very, very good choice.

the rules changed when the CARS came out to allow AME's to do field overhaul's of simple piston engines

It's not quite that simple. As usual with TC, it
sounds good, but the reality is quite different.

Walk up to 99% of the AME's in Canada and
ask them if they are in fact legally able to perform
a field overhaul on a boxer piston engine, and they
will truthfully tell you "no". Then, ask them why.

The usual Orwellian doublespeak.

I also know of many poor guys who have attempted
to import light aircraft into Canada, only to discover
after they purchase it that the last overhaul was
a "field" overhaul, and TC forced them to overhaul
the engine again at a Canadian engine shop.

[cgartly]

Personally I'd go with new Lycoming cylinders
instead of aftermarket - they've had a lot of
bad problems.

And I'd go with new cam/lifters instead of
reground, but that's just me.

Cam/flat tappet lifters are such a problem on
the Lycomings, the factory recently went to
roller lifters to try to solve the problem. It's
too bad you can't retrofit roller lifters. For a
privately (and infrequently) flown aircraft, I
think it might be a very, very good choice.

My preference was to go with Lycoming cylinders as well, I could pick them up for around $1183USD each. The only reason I went with Superior cylinders is I found some new old stock ones and paid $1,900 USD for all 4 with high compression pistons. The high compression pistons are sold by the guys that sell the STC for $1690USD alone. I wouldn't have bought them mind you but ended up getting a great deal. From all of the research I have done I haven't been able to find any major problems with Superior cylinders on Lycoming engines. They seem to have a few AD's on Continental's and other issues not covered by the AD. ECI cylinders seem to be plagued on both Lycoming & Continental. Hopefully they make it to TBO but if not I guess I can't complain.

I will be going with new cam/lifters for the reasons you described!

the rules changed when the CARS came out to allow AME's to do field overhaul's of simple piston engines

It's not quite that simple. As usual with TC, it
sounds good, but the reality is quite different.

Walk up to 99% of the AME's in Canada and
ask them if they are in fact legally able to perform
a field overhaul on a boxer piston engine, and they
will truthfully tell you "no". Then, ask them why.

The usual Orwellian doublespeak.

Any AME's I've asked were very reluctant despite what the regs say. Although if they don't have any experience doing basic engine overhauls then I suppose they shouldn't try even if the regs allow them to. My A&P said a FAA ASI once told him that his A&P certificate allowed him to do pretty much anything BUT if something goes wrong he better be able to explain what methods & procedures were used to accomplish the task and how he was trained to accomplish the task in question.

I also know of many poor guys who have attempted
to import light aircraft into Canada, only to discover
after they purchase it that the last overhaul was
a "field" overhaul, and TC forced them to overhaul
the engine again at a Canadian engine shop.

This one seems to depend on how much documentation there is supporting the field overhaul. In the case of my 172 there were 8130's for most of the components and a fairly detailed log book entry and it was accepted with no trouble. I saw another case where the engine overhaul entry said something along the lines of "engine make/model/sn overhauled" with a A&P's signature. That one was not accepted. However a local guy on the field here inspected the engine (pulled some cylinders and not sure what else) and wrote his own logbook entry that was more detailed and signed it off and it was then accepted without being overhauled by an engine shop.

On imports it all depends on the shop doing the conformity inspection and the discretion of the TC MDM signing the C of A. Also depends very much on how much the TC MDM trusts the shop. I picked my shop very carefully. There were 3 shops I phoned that all quoted 10K for an import. One of those three wouldn't accept light soap scum type corrosion on the interior stating that it had to be removed completely prior to import. That shop has a couple of planes that have been in progress for 6 months +, I'd hate to see those bills. My import still ended up costing close to 3-4K but 1K of that was paint work.

Knowing what I know now however I don't think I'll ever import another aircraft. I can't think of a single reason to. US Trust is not that expensive to get setup and maintain and what it costs to maintain I save on insurance. My insurance on the PA38 in the US is 1/4 of what I was quoted in Canada and is also an open pilot policy that allows me to rent/loan the a/c out if I chose.

[cgartly]

Sorry everyone, I dragged this one way off topic!

[Beefitarian]

Sorry everyone, I dragged this one way off topic!

Well if you want my opinion.


Thank you for posting some descent content. Like shiney said, this forum has been lacking that recently.