The best equipped shop in Europe is probably Avionik Straubing “near” Munich. The key is that a shop needs to have equipment for bench testing, the manual with test procedures and schematics and expansion cables to run the AP in flight on the lap with access to its analog adjustment screws. Whether a repair etc. is approved is pretty irrelevant, what’s important is that the box works and nobody will ask any questions anyway. This old stuff is just discrete electronics with virtually unlimited opportunity for repair.
You might be able to determine yourself which component is at fault (AP “computer”), servo, connection and then send out the unit. Otherwise combine it with your upcoming trip to Salzburg, that is not far. Speak to Martin Scheifl in advance, usually they help pop-in customers with such stuff. Their repair shop is separate from the avionics installation department which has a waiting list longer than for a car in communist times.
Maybe hitch a ride with Jason who is a great fan of the Bavarian boondocks and flies there regularly?
Peter wrote:
I doubt Autopilots Central have gone out of business
No, they are there and I have spoken to Laura who said that she would speak to colleagues and get back to me. She hasn’t.
Similarly, I have a call in with Avionicare and they have not returned my calls.
Both Harry and Garry were extremely helpful, and made all sorts of suggestions, but are not in a position to help.
The trouble with the unofficial poke around is that those willing to do so really don’t know what they are doing with this 60 year old technology.
Dirkj – I am not sure it is the same, from googling around. I found this
It may well have been a functional copy of the IV.
Lack of email response is standard in GA.
I doubt Autopilots Central have gone out of business but you don’t really want to fly to the USA for debugging.
Surely an avionics shop, provided with the installation manuals, should be able to have an unofficial poke-around on an hourly rate? Mind you, right now they are all busy 24/7 doing 8.33 stuff.
Thank you.
I must say that all the experts I have been pointed to, Harry Lees, Garry Joyce, Avionicare and Autopilots Central are unable to help, the first two because they don’t have the equipment and the latter two do not respond to emails and phone calls.
I’ll leave a cup in the corner of the thread, in case anyone wants to help with the 55X :-(
From the pictures I once saw, I think the autopilot is a rebranded Bendix FCS810, at least the control panel looks exactly like mine.
Mine was last repaired at Autopilots Central (minor trim problem) and has been working without any intervention since about 20 years. Before that it was declared junk by an incompetent shop before I sent it off to a competent one.
I wish I could help. This thread, together with countless emails I have from owners, illustrates the dire situation we have in Europe. There are a few good people in the business but by and large it is a case of: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King. Most avionics installers are purely wiremen, working from the circuit diagrams in the installation manuals and phoning Garmin on their special dealer support number if they get stuck, with no capability for debugging at the interconnection level.
The certification system keeps the situation ticking along very nicely… If you are EASA-reg you cannot install anything “used” even if it was your own from new and you had it repaired, unless it comes with an EASA-1 or a dual release 8130-3, which keeps a very small number of “good” shops in business and some of the best known ones accordingly behave with great arrogance and, again from reports I have, with a great deal of incompetence, but “everybody” still thinks they are wonderful and reputable.
I have added “Century 3C” etc to the thread title.
I don’t have any manuals (apart from the POH) in my 30GB collection, except the overall wiring diagram
However I have an amazing tool, extremely kindly written by another pilot here, which does a google search for a specified string and downloads any PDFs it finds. Running now…
Found this from 1973
Yes the Altimatic V FD has, er, FD 
Wow. I had no idea there is a piper altimatic with Flight Director.
Timothy wrote:
The flight director does not work either on the Aspen or the legacy AI that drives the autopilot
So it doesn’t work at all then?
Maybe you are right and you might actually save some money by going for a 55x instead of dicking around with a legacy system for ages.
I used IAE at Cranfield for system diagnosis and component repair on a similar age C340 ARC autopilot. Gary Joyce is in charge of the avionics section. They sorted out the problem in no time and very reasonably too. (Dry solder joints on a motherboard connector). They don’t appear to have Piper-Mitchell-Century systems on their repair capabilities list but they do for system and bench testing. So may be able to diagnose and possibly rectify if as you suspect its wiring/connectors.
I say again, I have no problem sending the boxes to the States, or preferably getting recon exchange units, but I seriously wonder if that is the issue, as that was done in the last 18 months.
At the moment, I simply want someone to diagnose where the problem lies.
