"Steve" wrote in message om...
Light IFR cross country can turn into hard IFR cross country. Consider the
importance of the instrument and then decide whether it would be better to
buy a new one or overhaul a 20 year old AI. I think you already know what
you should do.


Well, gosh, what should he do?

When our DG failed, we figured the AI was the same (unknown) age
and bought a new instrument with a vacuum failure flag.

The new AI failed less than 50 hrs later.

It was replaced under warranty, of course, and has been OK since.

I have friends with overhauled AIs which work perfectly for hundreds
of hours

So tell us, what should Cory already know that he should do, because
having gone through 2 instrument and 1 vac pump failure in 1000 hrs
of flying time it's not so clear to us?

FWIW Cory if you don't have a vacuum guage in your primary scan
I'd consider a new instrument with a vacuum flag on the face.
But, it's just not clear to me that new is necessarily superior
to a good O/H. A lot of people seem to like Kelley Instruments
these days.

Cheers,
Sydney