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<< Lancair Builders' Mail List >>
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Marv, I have not had time to read and to properly send info to the forum, but
wanted to get this information to you ASAP since there seems to be a lot of
messages and concern lately about the Continental Engine Cranks.
I fly out of Smith Reynolds Airport (INT) in Winston Salem, NC. Piedmont
Aviation operates out of this airport and are authorized Sales and Service for
Beechcraft. Tuesday when I was going to my hanger, I saw 6 new Barons parked
on the ramp along with a couple of other planes with Continental Engines. All
had the cowls off and were in various stages of disassembly.
I walked over to talk with the guy who looked to be in charge of all this and
learned that he was from Contential Factory and was inspecting these planes
for the shaft problem.
Told him I was building a Lancair ES and was concerned about the problems I
had heard. He took the time to explain the problem to me and showed me now
they checked out the cranks.
He said the problem started with a defect in the tool that inserts the counter
weights in the cranks, I think he said it had a small nick in the tool which
had the change of causing the crank to impart enough pressure to the nitrided
surface and possibly set up a stress crack. According to him, they only
thought this problem went back 3 months, but decided to check the entire 1998
parts that went out.
The first thing they do is pull two cylinders on one side of the engine and do
a visual inspection. If this show no problem they then do a specialized test
which looked like an ultra sound test that had to have values within a certain
range. If the engine passed this test, there was no problem. If it failed
this test, then the crank was removed and replaced.
I said this sounded very expensive to the owner and he said that Continential
was playing for the cost, plus he indicated that if the engine was "new",
don't know the definition of this, they intended to replace the engine. I
know this is not an official statement from Contential, but this man seemed
very concerned about making sure the problems were corrected. Said he had not
found any problems so far with the engines he had checked but I didn't get a
number from him.
Anyway, just thought I would pass this on for what its worth. Has anyone
contacted Lancair to get their official version of this problem. Seems they
have a lot at stake with this potential problem to the reputation of the
Columbia.
I will try to get back to the airport today to see if they found any problems
with the engines they were checking. Let you know if I find out any more on
the problem.
Wayne Foster
LML homepage: http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
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