0-320 OH

[Hornblower]

Oh ya, about the engine control cables, if you are talking about the Cessna missives on replacing engine control cables at engine overhaul intervals, they are not limitive, and are only stated in some of the Cessna small aicraft manuals. I've run control cables for thousands of hours beyond that with no issue. In fact the only failures I've seen were on the piano wire mixture and carb heat cables on the little ones. You can usually spot the failure point on the wire where it exits the wound sleeve ... replace on condition. Lots of '50s era 180s and 182s flying around safely with original throttle and prop cables.

Love those big old white palm sized knobs ... classic!

[photofly]

Do you really want to invest in the "as is" accessories being installed back on the engine, then back into the airplane? They just become something which goes wrong early, and causes out of phase maintenance to be required.

Nope. You're subscribing to the "fixed lifetime" theory, which isn't true. Remind yourself of the bathtub curve.

If you're budgeting an engine overhaul without performing the maintenance on the related systems, you're just cheating yourself.

The only person you're "cheating" is the person you'd otherwise pay to replace all those airworthy proven-in-service accessories with untested ones.

Why on earth would I want to replace a magneto I had serviced 300 hours ago with a new one? My vacuum pump is 250 hours in service. At the average number of hours flown by a private owner each year it should give trouble free service for a minimum of five more years. Perhaps double that. Should I throw it away? Seriously?

[PilotDAR]

Why on earth would I want to replace a magneto I had serviced 300 hours ago with a new one? My vacuum pump is 250 hours in service. At the average number of hours flown by a private owner each year it should give trouble free service for a minimum of five more years. Perhaps double that. Should I throw it away?

This fits right into the private aircraft maintenance schedule logic. Yes, the owner should decide, and then instruct what maintenance is to be done, and to what standard. Just understand that when you allow something to be deferred, it's going to require maintenance some time in the future, and require additional re & re cost. I'm not saying to OH everything, just to think about it. But you may not be saving money on an OH by deferring things, so it could be false economy...

[Strega]

DAR,,

Are you suggesting that re installing 200 hr since new magnetos into a O smoh engine is cutting corners, and or "deferring" maintenance?

My idea of "deferring" things is for an "overhaul shop AMO bla bla bla" to "rebuild" 30 year old cylinders for almost the price of new....

[photofly]

you may not be saving money on an OH by deferring things, so it could be false economy...

Electing not to replace a functioning and serviceable mid time component isn't "deferring" anything. It's avoiding insanity.

[PilotDAR]

Are you suggesting that re installing 200 hr since new magnetos into a O smoh engine is cutting corners, and or "deferring" maintenance?

Yes, I am. But not in the sense that the aircraft is any less airworthy, but rather than in the sense that you are reinstalling mags with 300 hours left on them before their OH is required. 'Might be poor economy. In fairness to many aircraft, that is a few years of flying, so go for it. But on a heavily used aircraft, it may not be worth the sooner re & re. It's up to the owner to rationalize the expense, but not pretend that it does not exist....

[PilotDAR]

What might you suggest you do with a magneto with 300 hrs since new?

I suggest to myself to overhaul it, if it's off anyway. For the small cost, it's not worth the risk of having to remove it later if it goes bad early - which has happened to me, and at least on other contributor here. Others can do as they want, but those others are deceiving themselves, if they think they should not budget for accessory overhaul during engine overhaul.

I think its clear to me you have never had to do a p&l for a business....

I'm glad it's clear to you, 'cause I have no idea what you're talking about....

My business is an aviation service, and prior to that I worked for eight years in an engine and accessory overhaul shop. I saw a lot of things which taught me to do the maintenance, rather than wishing I had while flying over the trees at night. I maintain my planes with the "if in doubt, do it" approach. Others are of course, free to comply with the maintenance requirements for the aircraft and engine as they wish.... They're not flying my planes, and I'm not flying theirs!

New owners who would gather information here should not leave with false illusions about aircraft maintenance and costs. The aircraft must be maintained airworthy, and the people in the industry who provide those services would like to be fairly paid.

[PilotDAR]

I put just about $150 hr into my engine reserve fund

Very wise! I had a friend decades ago who was similarly disciplined with his Aztec. He eventually had enough saved to buy a brand new engine as a spare, which he did. It sat ready to go at any time, so that any down time would be minimized.

[ruddersup?]

Private operators never need to overhaul, just repair. Most engines die in the tie down so repair until the repair becomes more expensive than an overhaul. However if you plan on selling then o/h otherwise repair. The average joe has no concept of "repair" and would make it a difficult sell.
Commercially I had all accessories and cylinders on condition, this means that we could go past manufacturers suggested overhaul life. We would monitor the components and then repair when necessary. Repairs were made to a level that would anticipate the same reliability that an overhaul would provide. I know you could jump on this statement but used parts installed were "good". Of course we had to overhaul or purchase new occasionally to upgrade the inventory. I would only overhaul the bottom end of the engine, put used cylinders on, used accessories, used plugs etc. and break it in on the aircraft by flying it.
This should get some comments.

[PilotDAR]

"Good" as it applies to aircraft engine parts hopefully implies that the parts were obtained as traceable and airworthy, and at least within "service" limits, if not new limits. To qualify an overhaul, there could be a requirement to install new parts, regardless of their size/wear.

But the aircraft owner can elect to repair rather than overhaul if they wish. Someone who's "on top" of their aircraft might be willing to risk having to take it apart again shortly, or have a part let go inside. I suggest that may not be the best approach for the conservative owner. Having an exhaust valve go wrong can be really inconvenient, and then expensive.

When I overhauled my O-200 years ago, it had more than 3500 hours at the time. I split it, as it was making a tiny amount of ferrous metal I could not account for. I found no impending failures, and just one dimension very slightly under serviceable limits. Easy rework. But, the cost to go from "repair" to "overhaul" was a bit over $1000 in new parts. That's what I had the AMO do for me. I tagged and retained the replaced parts, just in case I ever would like to reuse them, but otherwise, I have peace of mind. I would really rather not be repairing the engine regularly to save some cost. But other might, and that's okay, as long as the requirements are met.

That said, I have a great amount of experience with Continental starters. If starter repair has been found to be required, new parts, or at least sizes, throughout. Those parts wear quickly when getting into service limit range, and when they fail because of wear it's bad. I would never reinstall "good" Continental starter parts, they'd have to be new sizes to satisfy me.

[Chris M]

For what it's worth, we were just quoted $25,500 (with tax) to overhaul our O-320-E2D. This would include new cylinders, slick mags, cam, cam followers and overhauled carb, as well as all the usual NDT and labour.

[cap41]

For what it's worth, we were just quoted $25,500 (with tax) to overhaul our O-320-E2D. This would include new cylinders, slick mags, cam, cam followers and overhauled carb, as well as all the usual NDT and labour.

Did that include the removal and re installation of the engine? Thanks for the reply.

[crazyaviator]

Been reading it takes up to 3 days to Re-RE an 0-320 ,,, Anymore than 16 hours to do this and me thinks they are sniffing too much glue

[robertw]

Been reading it takes up to 3 days to Re-RE an 0-320 ,,, Anymore than 16 hours to do this and me thinks they are sniffing too much glue

Usually shops have more than one guy working on a job like that. Could be 2 or 3X more labour than that.

[Chris M]

For what it's worth, we were just quoted $25,500 (with tax) to overhaul our O-320-E2D. This would include new cylinders, slick mags, cam, cam followers and overhauled carb, as well as all the usual NDT and labour.

Did that include the removal and re installation of the engine? Thanks for the reply.

No, that's just the engine rebuild. We'll be doing to re-and-re ourselves. There's also things like an inspection for the engine mount, new mount bushings, assorted hoses... Probably a few thousand worth of other stuff. The plane is all original at the moment ('74 172M with 2300 hours) so things are in need of a good going over.

[cgzro]

As a point of reference, the labour costs for the removal, shipping, receiving, reinstallation of my 360 was about $4k.
Thats more complex because its constant speed with inverted oil so knock off about 1k and I would not be surprised at a $3k bill for remove/ship/install.

Its possible to spend quite a bit of time getting all the hoses/fittings/wires/baffling etc. just right and its not something you want to botch up. Also that bill did not include the new motor mounts and new hoses etc. which I purchased separately and provided to the shop.

My guess is your shop can very accurately estimate the labor cost. They have likely done it hundreds of times and know exactly how long it will take on average.

Unfortunately its expensive. You can likely help reduce the costs, especially on the removal.

[OntheNumbers]

I'm curious how sensitive that overhaul price is to the exchange rate. The $ now is a lot lower than it was when this thread was started and I think most/all parts need to come from the U$A

[crazyaviator]

How is it that a pilot can demand 120,000 for a LH seat in a king air and yet the 25 year veteran overhauling your engine for you is not worth half that in your opinion ?

[Chris M]

I'm curious how sensitive that overhaul price is to the exchange rate. The $ now is a lot lower than it was when this thread was started and I think most/all parts need to come from the U$A

We just received our overhauled O-320 on Thursday at a total cost of $23,362.37. From our initial quote back in November the price went up about $1800 due to the collapse of the dollar.

[Chris M]

Here's the basic breakdown of the invoice:

Labour: $4,950
Parts: $15,388
Shop supplies: $336
Tax: $2687

The big ticket items for the parts were the cylinders ($7155), mags ($2750), and cam and lifter kit ($2181).