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Engine options (crankshaft AD not done)

Hi,

This is one of those stories that usually start with “a fried of mine had this happen..” But it happened to me..

When we started to sell our T182T (with 1.300 hours on the engine and a fresh ARC) recently we were very excited to may be upgrade to a Cirrus. Unfortunately our bubble got bursted when we learned that we had a Lycoming camshaft AD issue. Our CAMO didn’t think we were affected but after reading and rechecking the appropriate Lycoming AD we are now officially grounded. The tightfisted idiot who owned her before missed the chance to upgrade the camshaft for the USD2.000 that Lycoming offered until 2009. Now after the initial shock we have several options:

- sell the airframe as is for core value so that a new buyer can upgrade to his choice
- exchange the camshaft for close to USD20.000 (without any benefit)
- exchange the engine for a factory rebuild for USD65.000+
- upgrade to a IO-550 IF this is possible under EASA reg (which I haven’t checked) Jack, the owner of Texas Skyways will be back later this afternoon.. I’ll post an update once I know more. This would almost put our 182 in Cirrus territory..
- upgrade to an SMA (if that is still an option and only IF they don’t have silly ideas about pricing which I seem to recall from another thread)

Please let me know your ideas, also regarding resale values and if you are so inclined about my current position. Yes, I am shattered. Fortunately the missus supports me and I have secured financing for the above.

So fire away

EDLN and EDKB

I am really sorry to hear this. What a bugger and what a story of stupidity of previous owners and more to the point the incredible lack of warning by the “engineer” who has been signing off the plane at every Annual and every service since about 2002 which is when the first crankshaft ADs came out. I have emails with Air Touring going back to 2002 even before I took delivery of the plane, asking them about this issue, and I knew nothing about planes back then.

I did mine in 2008 using the $2500 crankshaft option which you mention. Total cost was $14k plus shipping to/from the USA. But even in the last 1-2 years there were TB20s for sale, unairworthy, looking for a buyer who doesn’t do an AD check on the prebuy.

If the 182 is similar to the TB20’s IO540-C4 in cost terms (I believe yours is 220-230HP; mine is 250 so same engine basically) the cheapest way out of this is generally a Lycoming “remanufactured” engine. They take yours as a core, not generously because they zero-value your crankshaft, and you get a zero-hour engine, made up from some new and some used parts, and apart from a small risk of subsurface cracks (prop contacting the ground, cracking the crankcase, etc) it will be as good as a new engine, and some will say better because the steel parts will have been proven.

I think the “engineer” should be firmly asked to contribute, and if necessary pursued legally, because he has been illegally signing the plane off since around 2014 (latest). If he doesn’t, report him to the CAA. The whole world has known about this since 2002. This is not anything subtle. It’s the biggest engine story in GA. The crankshaft serial numbers are tied to the engine serial numbers (one call to Lyco will reveal the crank S/N – done it myself) and the tables of these have been all over the net for years. Most IO540s made 1997-2002 were affected. And if they missed this, what other AD have they missed?

The difficulty will be if you are hangared at this company, because if there are no other hangarage options, they have you over a barrel.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

OP is talking about *cam*shafts, not crankshafts.

Re the crankshaft AD, I think every owner of a big-bore Lycoming knows about it.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 15 Apr 19:40
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

OP is talking about *cam*shafts, not crankshafts.

exchange the camshaft for close to USD20.000 (without any benefit)

I don’t think so

His post “fits” only if he is talking about the crankshaft.

Has there been a camshaft AD on the 540?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

If it is the crankshaft I have a complete used TIO-540-AE2A crankshaft in stock. If it fits the engine I would sell it for a small fraction of a new one. If it is the camshaft all I can recommend is to get a camshaft kit with tappets. Those kits retail for less than a camshaft alone.

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Sorry, my mistake: I know the difference between a camshaft and a crankshaft, I still wrote it wrong and it is indeed the crankshaft.

Sebastian: thank you – I will check whether that option “flies”. I will PM you..

Last Edited by mrfacts at 15 Apr 23:10
EDLN and EDKB

A camshaft is c. $4k.

I should add that Lyco used to offer a free crankshaft if you sent the engine to them for an overhaul. That was how they avoided a class action (they are not obliged to support 3rd party engine shops). I have no idea if that offer still stands. The downsides were

  • few people trust Lyco (back then especially)
  • Lyco overhaul was not cheap
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

it is indeed the crankshaft.

Sorry, you lost me…. so are you saying that you have been owning and operating a Lycoming-powered C182 for years and you didn’t know about the infamous Lyco crankshaft AD?? Just as a single data point, Peter must have been talking about it here for about 143 times…

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Yes bosco: I was pretty certain that it had been taken care of after my CAMO had year after year checked and signed off the logs

EDLN and EDKB

Understand…

Back to your options…

- sell the airframe as is for core value so that a new buyer can upgrade to his choice
- exchange the camshaft for close to USD20.000 (without any benefit)
- exchange the engine for a factory rebuild for USD65.000+
- upgrade to a IO-550 IF this is possible under EASA reg (which I haven’t checked) Jack, the owner of Texas Skyways will be back later this afternoon.. I’ll post an update once I know more. This would almost put our 182 in Cirrus territory..
- upgrade to an SMA (if that is still an option and only IF they don’t have silly ideas about pricing which I seem to recall from another thread)

The first question is: do you want to keep her or not?

If yes, I would ask myself: is the engine in overall good condition? Then I might do the first. Alternatively, you might get the whole engine overhauled (i.e. not get it changed).
Re the IO-550: it is quite rare that aircraft get un-turbo’ed. Sure, the IO-550 is overall the better engine ( and certainly much more powerful down low) but you would lose the high-altitude performance. The IO-550 can’t be run on mogas, so you wouldn’t gain anything there.
Re the SMA, I haven’t heard anyone doing that conversion in recent years, so it probably doesn’t have sufficient benefits, at least for an aircraft operated mostly in central Europe.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 16 Apr 06:21
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany
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