Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Engine overhaul / repair shop recommendation

My choice would be nicholson mc laren.

be aware there seems to be a major issue in Germany with Ghonert overhauls as German CAA has withdraw Form1 for some ovh engines major upset for the plane owners as planesare grounded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fly2000

Peter Paul,

the issue is a bit more complex. It only affects a handful of overhauls done in 2014 and I expect the situation to be resolved within the next 2 weeks.

In short: Max Ghönert died in 2014 and he held the inspection authority for the overhaul shop. As typically done in such cases, the company asked another inspector (Heinz Dachsel from Munich) to certify their work until they have a replacement. Apparently the LBA agreed to that but then in an audit last year, changed their opinion. They believe that Dachsel was not authorized to issue Form 1s for engines overhauled at the Ghönert facilities. Now they are working on a plan how to solve this. As both companies have been operating for generations, I am convinced there will be a solution.

It’s a common problem if a person with a certain authorization dies. We’ve had it with N-reg trusts and it happens frequently with maintenance shops.

sounds strange to me if the LBA has agreed on something like this, to do it without written records/permission so they can change there “mind”
if something like this would happen to me on an overhaul that costs lots of money I would go ……
if my plane was grounded with something like this and what ever happens next, for sure it will cost even more!!
imagine you are a flightschool and have something like this???!!!!

i go along with commander and highly can recommend Nicolson Mclaren keept all there delivery promises competitive prices and good warrenty

fly2000

From here

Peter wrote:

Hence I prefer to not bet against known odds

I think you are free to fly to the US for a haircut and back if you believe that gives you a better haircut but it is pretty rare for a European GA pilot to send engines overseas for overhaul.

I have not found any reason why a Lycoming/Conti overhaul done in the US for a plane stationed here would give me the slightest advantage. The added risk and hassle is not balanced by anything about the overhaul that would be better than what I can get here.

If my plane was stationed in the UK, I would probably use Nicholson McLaren or now with the low Euro value, drive it in a car from the UK to Belgium or Germany.

I would even say that a German engine shop is more qualified and precise in general. Also you would have less hassle with warranty, transport and so on. You could even fly there and and let them take the engine out …

A warranty on an engine is a bit like a warranty on a parachute

A reputable US firm will get a firm local to you to do warranty work. In neither case (US or Germany) will you be able to fly there if there is anything wrong with it.

The posting I made at the top would be useful for both Europe and the USA if there is anything wrong with the engine.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I wouldn’t say “more” or “less” qualified but surely well qualified. Apart from just following the overhaul manual (which is not difficult, these are 1950s processes requiring 1950s skills and 1950s machinery), there are a few optional things you can do to give your customers a warm fuzzy feeling I mean improve the quality of the overhaul.

There are limits by how much a crankshaft can be out of balance and you can bring it inside the limits or you can go the extra mile and file around until it is completely at zero. You can also weigh the pistons/rods and make sure they are within the limits or you can spend extra time and effort and try to reduce the difference to zero. It probably does not make a difference but it surely doesn’t harm.

Lycoming/Conti overhaul is a rather simple task, time consuming but not difficult.

Exactly.

I went around this in 2008.

Nobody in Europe would touch balancing – other than simple weight matching. The only firms approved for balancing (removing metal) are in the USA. Barrett Precision is one of the very few, but they don’t have an EASA 145 approval AFAIK.

Pistons normally come in fairly well matched sets, you can’t remove any metal from conrods, which leaves you with not many options and it’s a skilled job.

The overhaul manual might be from 1978 or so (IO540-C4) but still so many firms manage to screw up seemingly basic operations like sliding the front seal over the flange without buggering it up so it leaks after a bit. Very hard to get that one fixed under a warranty….

Every EASA66 (working inside a 145) or FAA A&P guy is “qualified” but most can’t do it right. There is a lot more than reading the MM.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I don’t think so. A catastrophic engine failure is really the big exception. I was not talking about flying to the shop with a broken engine – but about the possibility to fly the airplane to the engine shop for overhaul. From Roeder you’d be home in a couple of hours …

Sign in to add your message

Back to Top