those...@%&*!! helicoils

Larry Lowenkron

Larry Lowenkron

Member
Had an interesting (!) flight on April 30. Last night before the annual, so I took my Cruisair so it would be warm enough for a compression check that evening(as good as excuse as any). It started to miss on crosswind. Landed and found that the #6 lower plug was loose...of course it was the insert. Turns out the helicoil was replaced with a solid insert (Helicoil Save a Thread or equiv), and it came free. (Actually broke!) Now I have a hole in the cylinder that is 0.670 inches in dia. Too big for a regular helicoil and probably too big for a Time Sert oversize. Any one have ideas on how to fix, other that to weld it up and start over?
 
Do yourself a favor and pull the jug! Anything you do now will only come back at you later and at a worse time. the right thing to do is pull the jug and send it to a cylinder shop for the proper repair and future piece of mind. It is going into annual anyway so just do it! LYNN N9818B
 
Thanks for the reply Lynn. I did pull the cylinder last night, and will take it to Deb's A/C this week. I was looking and hoping for some larger type of insert that would anchor better than helicoils. Time -Serts looked good initially, especially their Big Sert, it is 0.71 " OD. When I talked to them, they told me that the hole shouldn't be >0.640" dia, and mine is ~ 0.67", so off it came. I guess silly putty wouldn't work either would it? Larry
 
Larry-
Sorry to hear you had to pull the jug. I had a plug let go in the pattern at Eugene once, too. Luckily, a Heli-coil did the trick. Good luck on the annual!
Scott
 
Hi Scott, Are you back for a while? Hope so!

Turns out I pulled two jugs - 4 & 6. Seemed they both had low compression. 4 looked like an intake valve.... of all things. Everything else in the cylinder looked good. Sent both of them to Debs. Guess I can't complain. First time I had a jug off for low compression in ~900 hours. IA is backed up so the annual is going slow. When I get the jugs back, I will start getting worried about losing the summer. Ought to do another annual in the winter. Enough of these summer annuals, and missing the best fllying!
Larry
 
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