Well all, many of us have different passions on this forum. Some of are into cars, some of us are into houses, some of us are into… watches? My passion is airplanes as of late. Since last summer I have been actively pursuing my pilots license and beyond. This little hobby of mine has required me to invest in some rather interesting equipment.
As with anything I have done in my life - I have ran into some mechanical problems. I figured with this being a car forum, everyone can appreciate a little mechanical project regardless of what it exactly is.
Enter the Piper PA-23-160 Apache Geronimo conversion.
Essentially; this is a twin engine, complex aircraft. It is powered by two Lycoming O-360-a1d engines with constant speed propellers. Each engine is a 4 cylinder, with 2 spark plugs per side. Each engine is also 360 cubes with OHV (PUSHRODS!). Each propeller is capable of changing its pitch to the most efficient angle by use of oil pressure and a governor. Lastly, the plane has a complete hydraulic system tasked with retracting the landing gear and flaps.
Here are some pictures when the plane first came in. It was quite the event and everyone seemed to like the first impressions.
Then came the issues. While draining oil and inspecting oil screens, I noticed an abnormal amount of metal in the filter of the right engine. This lead me to remove the front cylinder from the case to get a better look inside. What I found was NOT pleasing.
Quite a bit of scoring on the piston skirt. No bueno.
Yuck! look at that cam lobe. Whole engine must come off.
The carnage…
Currently I am waiting on parts to come back from the machine shop. The crank, case, and rods were all salvageable. However, the camshaft and followers where done for.
I got a buddy thats big into aviation. He went to school here in schenectady, but currently working out in Mojave, CA at scaled composites. He races airplanes in the formula 1 class at Reno in his custom built raceplane
I should actually just post pictures daily. I work about 40 hours a week at Rose Aviation, in akron NY. I need 30 months worth of “full time” work to be able to take the A&P test to legally work on my own aircraft without supervision.
Right now we have a Yak-52 (fighter trainer) in the shop, Waco Bi-plane, and a Fouga Magister 170 (Jet fighter) in the shop.
Everything is beefy! The piston is 5.185" in diameter. Compare that to a Ls1, at 3.9"
Aviation engines red line at about 2700, everything is geared towards producing as much for as little revolutions as possible. Big limiting factor is the length of propeller and the sound barrier at the propeller tips.
I’ve flown out of Akron before and have seen the Fouga it’s a pretty cool jet. I thought you were building homes not airplanes? Very cool. Aircraft engines are so fucking expensive but as I’m sure you know it has more to do with the liability of it all. Very cool. Tell Sarah I said hi.
I truley miss flying, but with the insane insurance hikes it became absurdly expensive to rent a plane for a few hours just to buzz around. Always wanted to own my own airframe but its just not in the cards right now. This is great though seeing a projext like this here. Ive been grounded for so long i would yave to get checked out in all the aircraft again that i used to fly. Boooooo. Never got my twin rating though so kudos to you for going for it!
Those lycomings do get like that when they run hot, or from people running on debris fields/FBO instead of clean tarmac. Ive rebuilt numerous lyco models before and most were for heavy oil consumption due to scored bores. They kind of crossbreed with my Porsche aircooled engine experience. And quite a few of my pcar owners were also pilots as well so the business didnt go too far Much more simple to work on though.
Good luck. I’ll be keeping tabs on this beut here!
Hopefully I’ll have a flying bird by the end of the week.
Aircraft parts nickle and dime you. From an auxiliary hydraulic system I’ve installed to the multiple fuel cells I’ve replaced. I finally have it all together.
Much more simple to work on though.
