Another Lycoming Crankshaft SB

I got burned by this one- have to have the engine yanked on my Extra and
sent away for who knows how long.

Oh, man, Jim -- that really sucks.

On the other hand, if Lycoming is REALLY having trouble with crankshafts
failing, I would think that an Extra would be the LAST plane you would want
to fly with a weak link behind the propeller.

Please keep us posted. I'd be curious to know how Lycoming handles this.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

That bites the big one Jim... Sorry to hear that... Our IO-360-A3B6D was
rebuilt in 03/01 but doesn't match any of the serial numbers.... Praise
the Lord!! :-)

Jon Kraus
'79 Mooney 201

Jim N. wrote:
I got burned by this one- have to have the engine yanked on my Extra and
sent away for who knows how long.

Also, the Extra has an MT composite prop, which has to be pulled and
overhauled every 6 years.

I plan on having the engine pulled this coming January when it's too cold to
fly the Extra anyway, but the next question is whether to do the prop a the
same time (claimed downtime is three weeks and around $3,500) or wait until
next year when the prop is actually due. (which means another month of
downtime again)

The worst part is that the engine has been running well- it never even needs
a quart between every 25 hour oil change, the compressions are solid, and it
idles and starts well. All this is on an engine that has no air filter and
is asked to go from 2700 rpm to idle and back again many times during a
practice session.

The prop is also clean and has no nicks, and doesn't leak any grease.
However, it has to be pulled every six years, crated, and sent to Florida
for overhall, then returned, remounted, and rebalanced.

Oh well, it's just a toy and there doesn't seem to be much choice in the
matter.

On 19-Jul-2005, "Jim N." wrote:

Oh well, it's just a toy and there doesn't seem to be much choice in the
matter.


Man, I really feel for you. What a dismal set of choices. Of course, as of
now the SB is just that, and legally you aren't required to do anything.
But everybody seems to feel that an AD is on the way.

The SB calls for pulling affected engines within 50 hours or 6 months,
whichever occurs first. At least you have a few ours to "burn" during the
good summer and fall acro weather. The folks I REALLY feel for are owners
of affected planes that rely on them regularly for business use and/or
rental revenues. I think Lycoming ought to give some consideration to those
cases

--
-Elliott Drucker