Be nice to your engine

[Garry Crookham]

Here is a picture of an engine we received at the shop today. It's an IO-470 from a Bonanza...failure happened at night over Texas and the pilot, with help from Center and the nearest airport funtion on his GPS, put it on a runway with no damage, other than number 4 connecting rod sticking thru the cowling. Taylorcrafts make much better gliders than Bonanzas!


Garry Crookham
N5112M
Tulsa

[barnstmr]

Gary,
At what engine shop do you work? I work at RAM Aircraft. We see these kind of failures on the big 520 cu.in. continentals once in a while. You don't hear of this kind of catostrophic failure though on little 65-100hp engines very often.
Terry B.

[Garry Crookham]

Hi Terry
I work for Powermaster at RVS in Tulsa. We also occasionally see this type of failure, but I've never seen this on an A or C series Continental.
We use quite a few RAM products when working on the 200/300/400 series Cessnas and installed a RAM GTSIO 520 on a 421 last summer.

Here's a picture of another failure we received this week....a turbo Bonanza being operated without an engine monitor...ouch!

Garry

[Forrest Barber]

That is JB weld & use the slower setting one for more stength..
We had an A-65 here with a broken crank throw that stayed together and the engine kept running ; twice in fact. When my Dad heard the "clunking" noise we shut her down & opened her up....and pulled the crank out in two pieces...