Dear all,
after much tribulation my EGT problem got solved about 2 weeks ago. Eventually, it was a harness problem which the shop had said they had checked, well not really. It was clear from the very beginning that it was an ignition problem but much time was wasted investigating cam problems and other stuff. The shop finally decided to order a new magneto and exchanged it and when they were doing this job they found one of the wires was not good. this is going to be some nasty negotiation as I have always told them they should concentrate on the ignition part. We will see what they will come up with.
To add insult to injury exactly when they had finally fixed everything my G2 packed up and they were not able to confirm the temperature gap had closed. So it took another 3 weeks at least to get the G2 sent to Insight, fixed and sent back. Now, on this particular issue my shop said the problem is solved.
No need to jump around in joy as the saga continues with a new issue. Will open a new thread :-(
Dear fellow pilots
I got the bill today and I still need to recover from the shock. How long does it take to remove and replace a dual magneto in a TB21. I was told it’s a day’s labor. Is that possible?
3 hrs. Both cowlings have to come off and that bit, 15 mins, is a 2 man (or 2 girl 
) job.
That‘s how they rack up hours. I am stumped. I will have to pay 7k to fix the ignition problem which basically was a bad harness under the plug isolation cap. And this is with a generous 50% discount.
I still have heart flickering
Get used to it… my engine start problem cost at least that much to resolve over a year… lots of stuff done, never really resolved, then changed a part everybody claimed was servicable and it works prfectly. Sent the part to a Mooney Guru and…. it was found perfectly servicable…
The joys of the aircraft owner…..
It should not be like that though, and probably would not be if the owner visited the hangar and checked everything himself.
If e.g. somebody said to me that they changed the ignition harness, and I visited the plane, I would see in 10 seconds whether it was changed.
What is happening is that some companies just take the p1ss. If someone did that to me I would never use them again, but the decision to not use a company ever again is a variable thing around Europe.
Peter
you are an engineer and knowledgeable. I have no idea of engines and electronics. You could tell me anything. My presence there would not have made any difference.
My experience in this case was that many non mechanic here on the board have a better understanding of the aircraft systems than the mechanics I am entrusting my plane. Unfortunately, if you are based somewhere you need to have some workable relationship with the sole shop on the field as otherwise they just won’t care about you if you need them.
Placido,
as I know your maintenance organisation, they usually are quite thrustworty and skilled. So is mine, which you also know.
The cost driver in such a case as in yours is debugging. Finding out what is really wrong if it is not obvious. And that is hit and miss at a mechanics hourly wage. That they gave you a discount on this is remarkable, that has yet to happen to me.
As for experts on the net: Last year as I said I had a massive problem starting the engine. We were working with THE authrities on Mooney (who gave their time on the net freely mind) to suggest possible scenarios what might cause this. We ended up ovehauling a magneto, changed the iginition lock, changing lots of parts, every time the plane left the shop it started great until two flights later when it refused to start. After one year and lots of tribulations, we changed the showers of sparks box, which had been diagnosed as working. And up to this day, the airplane starts every time.
Only when we sent the SOS box back to one of the foremost experts, it was found serviceable. So we don’t know why it now works with the new one, or whether some gremlin is still waiting to show its face. Even the probably most knowledgable guy in the business, Don Maxwell, is totally puzzled. So what would a normal maintenance organisation do with something like that?
This is a situation which internet expertise can help or can hinder. There are dozens of scenarios, dozens of combinations which can go wrong and short of tearing the engine to bits and reassembling it, there is no way to be sure that the next trial works.
That is what happened to you as well.
I am like you, I fly airplanes, I don’t repair them. I read what people say about mechanics but I am in no position to watch. But nevertheless I take part, which I know is not encouraged everywhere, but i do it anyway. At least I know then what is happening.
Yes, this is very unsatisfactory and if eventually the reasons are found, there are dozens of experts who would have “known from the start”. Well, I don’t hold my breath with such claims.
Fact is, the 50 year old technology in our planes is prone to failures. Fact is also that it took a licensed Peugeot Garage 2 years to find a fault in my 307, which is a computerized piece of innovation with so many fault possibilities, that it taxes even the most seasoned mechanics. Take your pick, make your choice, but any of these contraptions can bite.
Mooney,
If it wasn’t for my insistence, they would have sent the engine for an overhaul as they were convinced it was a camshaft issue. Their interpretation what a non fully closing exhaust valve has on EGT was the exact opposite of what it should be. I am not really convinced but have to live with it.
I have had several happenings of this problem, bad ignition harness.
In most cases they were caused by high resistance of the Champion spark plugs, the high voltage seeking the path of least resistance and arcing. In all cases, thanks to the all-cylinder engine analyser, and the in-flight LOP mag check, I was able to tell the technician after landing which cylinder and which sparkplug (upper/lower) was giving trouble; bills were never higher than one or two hours of work.
Obviously, if you send in the engine for overhaul or replacement, the bad ignition wire will be history and the problem ‘solved’.
Having and understanding an engine analyser is worth its weight in gold.
