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Help - need to crate and send an engine from Germany

The maintenance shop I am using told me that they cannot crate the engine and has requested that the engine shop (in USA) sends an empty box for them to put the engine in to and send it back. This seams very cumbersome to me.

Anybody has any experience with something similar and can offer advise?

Thanks,

Where would you like to send it from? The request for an empty box doesn't sound unrealistic to me...

BTW: there are good engine shops in Europe to overhaul.

Are you serious? Don't you Germans know how to make a wooden box? If I went there I would make one myself. Actually, that may very well be what I end up doing.

The airplane is located at EDOP. I'm sending it to USA because I know they will do a first class job overlooked by a friend of mine.

Don't you Germans know how to make a wooden box?

Only to DIN standard.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

It's more an insurance issue I think. The engine is valuable and whenever something gets damaged during transit, the shipper claims it's because of improper packaging.

You can ask engine overhaul shops for a box. A really good packaging would wrap the engine in plastic and fill the box with polyurethane foam.

See what I did here.

Americans absolutely require the wooden pallet (under the box) to be a special certified timber. If not (and suitably marked) the whole package will be returned!

The card box can be made locally but needs to be strong - triple wall corrugated card. The US engine shop I used shipped me a box but in retrospect this was a waste of money because any half competent packaging manufacturer can make a card box for maybe €50, 1-off.

I then used 2-pack expanding foam to fill the void. Obviously the engine needs to go into a big plastic bag because you don't want the foam to get into the crevices...

there are good engine shops in Europe to overhaul.

If the UK is anything to go by, you are looking at being able to count the just-about-good ones in all of Europe with the fingers of one hand...

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Give a call to Röder Präzision in Egelsbach on monday and ask for Mr. Hornbostel. They have a day off on Friday. They should be able to help you. They overhaul engines themselves so if they do not get the contract he might not be so enthousiastic but they have everything that is required as they often send of cores to the US etc.

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Thanks for the info.

BTW: there are good engine shops in Europe to overhaul.

True. I built a box (a very solid one) and sent my engine to one of the top shops in the USA to be o/h to new limits. This included all new cyl, new camshaft, new lifters, new mags, pumps, starter.....

After 70h the engine eat itself to dust and had to be o/h again, X2 cyl. gone, the camshaft gone and some lifters too. 90h after the second o/h it had to go back, this time the double gear lost a tooth.

Use a reputed shop in the UK or Germany and you might save yourself lots of agro.

After 70h the engine eat itself to dust and had to be o/h again, X2 cyl. gone, the camshaft gone and some lifters too. 90h after the second o/h it had to go back, this time the double gear lost a tooth.

Can you name the shop you used?

What did they find inside?

Your engine was either the victim of spectacularly bad luck (e.g. a subsurface crack, maybe following a prop strike) or it was assembled by a chimp. The two successive failures suggest the latter.

There are cowboys everywhere. The difference is that in the USA there is so much more business being done, and the pilots hang out on very big forums, that it is not hard to verify if a shop is good. Whereas in Europe most aircraft owners are not in touch with each other, and a cowboy shop can carry on for years.

Use a reputed shop in the UK or Germany and you might save yourself lots of agro.

If you can find one...

In the UK, there is only one shop which gets consistently good reports: Nicholson McLaren.

I won't say there are other good shops but try checking them out.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
23 Posts
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