Airplane Owner Maintenance

A Maintenance Oriented Podcast For Airplane Owners, Pilots, and Mechanics

Month: August 2021

186 – Diamond DA40 Squawks & a new Bonanza Friend!

August 28, 2021 / / 0 Comments

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From left: Arthur, Dave, Mervin, Dean (I got to work with these guys last Monday at Classic Aviation., when Dave had me lap the exhaust valves in cylinders 3 and 5.)

Scroll down for more info about this valve lapping adventure.

Diamond DA40 annual inspection – here are some squawks we discuss in this episode:

  • Electroair ignition leads.
  • Nose gear issues, including a missing elastomer element:
This is the elastomer pack for the nose gear. The small elastomer element in the yellow circle is the one that we replaced since the old one had split and fallen out of position. The hydraulic press was very helpful in compressing the stack to get the nut started. The end in the yellow circle goes on the bottom end when installed on the airplane, and the rod end bearing at the bottom of the photo is actually the top of the stack, and attaches to the engine mount at the firewall.
  • AmSafe seatbelts
  • RG24-15M aircraft battery
  • Alternator 500 hour brush inspection
  • Alternator aux. wire terminal loose
  • Aft door warning light inop.
  • Prop governor nuts under-torqued
  • Bolt dangling from the induction airbox
  • Oil leak caused by the engine driven fuel pump:
  • Engine baffling issues
  • Loose brake caliper bolts
  • Aluminum dust on prop spinner bulkheads:
  • Aft avionics fan inlet filter badly deteriorated and filthy:
  • Rudder cable tension low
  • Wiring and baffle rod under right side of engine

Now back to the valve lapping project with the Bonanza – here are the exhaust valves from cylinder 3 and cylinder 5… #3 compression improved from 60/80 to 62/80, and #5 compression improved from 55/80 to 69/80. The real test will be when we see the results after another 25, 50, and 100 hours of operation.

The #3 exhaust valve definitely has some irregularities; hopefully it will return to a normal appearance in several hours of operation after lapping and installing a new rotocoil.
The #5 exhaust valve looks quite healthy overall, with a very small questionable area at about the 1 o’clock position. We also lapped this one and installed a new rotocoil as a proactive measure.

By the way, these photos were taken with my new Vividia VA-400 borescope… I was very impressed with the photo resolution compared with my older borescope from a couple years ago.

Click here to check out the new Vividia VA-400 borescope.

There are various options, and if you want to display the images on your iPhone or iPad, I recommend the VA-400 WiFi Bundle #1: VA-400 and W01 wifi box (Model: VA-400W1)

When you purchase from Oasis Scientific and use the code “Dean” you will receive a 10% discount, and you’ll be supporting the podcast at the same time.

It was a great experience meeting Dave Ovad and working on his F33A Bonanza along with Mervin and Arthur.

It was also a pleasure to see Arthur’s P35 Bonanza that day:

Arthur has a really nice panel in his airplane as well… check it out:

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185 – Standby Alternator System and Other Fun Stuff

August 20, 2021 / / 0 Comments

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I’ve just completed the installation for a B&C Specialties standby alternator system on an E33A Bonanza. It’s a fantastic system, and I talked about it in today’s podcast episode. Be sure to listen for a caution about the right magneto when installing a new oil seal in the drive adapter for the standby alternator.

Here are some other items mentioned in this episode:

Jim Lanning (92 years old!) and David McCain, stopped at KSHD yesterday in a beautiful Great Lakes aircraft. Jim is in the front seat. Check it out:

A weird oil leak on a Diamond DA-40 I’m hoping we can fix and tell the rest of the story in a future episode.

Now back to the Bonanza with the standby alternator system. We also installed new nose gear rod ends and some other parts on the airplane as well. The old rod ends are hollow and have a grease fitting on the side, which has been seen as a factor in these old rod ends breaking and causing prop strikes and other damage. Check out the difference between the old hollow type rod ends and the new solid type:

The standby alternator system turned out very well… I installed the switch and the 2 circuit breakers in the pilot’s instrument panel:

There was an ideal location for the indicator light just to the left of the already existing warning light for the main alternator system:

The final product is going to work very well:

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184 – My Oshkosh 2021 Adventure!

August 13, 2021 / / 3 Comments

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AirVenture was a fantastic experience once again!

In addition to the audio podcast for this episode, I also made a video using some of my favorite photos… here’s the YouTube link:

https://youtu.be/VlErN8RQNrQ

Don’t forget to click the “Store” tab above and check out the resources there. If you have any questions, click the button that says “Send Voicemail” and leave me a message.

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