In-Flight Engine Failure

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote in message ...
Well, it happended. I have owned the plane (Piper Turbo Arrow III) for
3 months and the engine failed during climb out on Tuesday. Altitude
was 4400 feet. Luckily, the engine did not entirely quit and I made it
to an airport within 10 miles. TBO was 1000 hours away. Dissapointing!
When we cut the oil filter, it was full of fairly large aluminum and
steel bits of metal. Arg!

What is wrong with this engine? The symptoms surely don't relate to
P leads or magneto wires.

Why not run a compression check on it? Take off the valve cover on
any suspicious cylinders. What's in there?

Take off the cylinder, if you figure out
that it's only one. See what's going on. What's the cam look like?

With the cylinder off, you can look inside the case for clues.

There are a lot of failures where you could do a repair and be back
in business--unless something got loose and whanged around inside.
The oil filter probably kept stuff out of the bearings.

It wouldn't be much of an investment in time to investigate. Plus,
we all want to know what busted!! Heck, you can even do this yourself.

It's a hard running engine.

Bill H