EAA Sport Aviation - October 2011

The shop recommended that the owner have his mechanic replace the starter adapter with the overhauled one from Niagara Air Parts—a procedure that the mechanic said would require hoisting the engine off its mounts and moving it at least 4 inches forward to provide adequate access—and then fly the airplane for five hours and recheck the oil filter for metal.

The owner and I discussed the engine builder’s recommendation at length. The owner was not comfortable with the recommendation for two reasons: First, the SEM report suggested that the metal in the filter was most likely coming from a disintegrating cam lobe, not from the starter adapter. Second, the aircraft was AOG at a high-altitude airport with treacherous mountainous terrain in all directions—not exactly the ideal location for flight testing a single-engine airplane with a sick engine. I could not fault the owner’s reasoning one bit.

Ultimately a decision was made to pull the engine and ship it back to the engine builder for another teardown inspection. Weeks later, the engine shop reported that the engine had been torn down, and (as feared) the starter adapter was damaged and the camshaft was unserviceable. Now the real fun began…

WHO PAYS?

At my suggestion, the owner told the engine shop that, due to its extraordinary history of making metal, he had completely lost faith in this particular engine and wanted the shop to provide him with another freshly overhauled replacement engine at an 80 percent discount since the current engine had been in service for only 325 hours ( just 20 percent of its

1,600-hour TBO).

The engine shop said it would be happy to sell the owner another engine, but could offer only a 21 percent discount—nowhere close to the 80 percent discount the owner was seeking. The shop explained that its engine warranty provides 100 percent coverage (parts and labor) for one year or 500 hours ( whichever comes first), after which partial coverage is provided on a pro-rata basis

“Stop worrying, Fred! I had the map printed on Poly-Fiber. What could possibly go wrong?”

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