At that price, I don’t think it was a reground crankshaft. It sounds like it was a replacement crankshaft. Otherwise that’s an outrageous price for an O-200.
In most cases where the existing crankshaft cannot be used, the repair cost is too close to the cost of a remanufactured engine, and most people go for the latter. This came up in most of these situations.
Bathman wrote:
Not one of my last 5 Lyco or conti’s have made TBO. Two of them and that includes a factory rebuilt have barely made 1/2 the TBO. And 4 out of that 5 needed cylinder head work/replacement cylinders.
Let me just make sure, we are talking about 5 “plain vanilla 4-cyl engines without turbochanger, flown by the book”, right ?
And not one of the 5 Lycos or Contis made TBO ? Please confirm.
Next question, after you said ‘confirmed’, did you fly
- at least once a months ? throughout winter ?
- LOP or ROP ?
- with an EDM ?
- you park outside next to the sea ?
- any other reasons you can think of, what went wrong ?
Continental O-200 overhaul cost at current exchange rate from a well known mid-range shop is GBP 13,657 with new cylinders. Link
My Lycoming O-320 from the same shop is $14,995 or 11,669 GBP with overhauled cylinders, 10% more with factory new Lycoming cylinders.
Bathman can’t use Corona Aircraft Engines because AFAICT they are not EASA approved and his planes are G-reg.
Otherwise their pricing is damn good. I paid about 10k more at Barretts, though I am not sure it was the same job. I had all accessories replaced or overhauled.
You have to add shipping from Europe, perhaps €1-2k, and import VAT.
I’m sure there are things that legitimately raise the price in real life… if you look here for in-stock engines with new accessories and the spec noted below the prices are about $2500 higher.
“OVERHAULED TO ZERO TIME SINCE MAJOR COMPLETE USING FACTORY NEW LIMITATIONS, WITH NEW CYLINDERS, OVERHAULED OR NEW CAMSHAFT WITH NEW LIFTERS. INCLUDING OVERHAULED OR NEW SLICK MAGNETOS (except H2AD series which will have an overhauled magneto), NEW IGNITION HARNESSES, NEW SPARK PLUGS AND A NEW SKY TEC STARTER”
My interest for my plane would be in overhauling an engine that is only half way to TBO hours, using my non-fatigued parts… and I do wonder where that would fall in terms of cost, in the real world.
No Peter that quote included a reground crank.
The engines get used most days of the week and do between 300 to 600 hours a year. And yes not one has made TBO.
I’ve allways been of the opinion that with engine overhaul’s you get what you pay for. So we have allways used new cylinders, new mags, new starter.
As for what went wrong I just think they crap engines. My Rotax which is operated in the same environment and has just passed 5000 hours total time. On nothing more than regular maintenance although I include carb rubbers in that.
I’d like to see a breakdown of that quote.
I know of two other people who have had recent O-200 overhaul’s. One was 26 K the other 21K.
