Engine quitting on landing

[NY86]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

The only thing i have found ethanol good for is selling carbs, hoses, o rings, gaskets ....

OMG, how did I ever overlook that!

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

You ARE NOT flying this plane any more are you? I would NEVER fly it till I found out what the problem was. Testing by impact is NEVER fun.
The most I woulds do is ground runs and maybe a few crow hops assuming the engine was going to quit any second until I KNEW I had corrected the problem. After that I would fly for a while within dead stick distance of the runway till I really trusted the engine again.
Of course I'm chicken and most of my flying has been within a safe landing spot anyway. Having learned to fly in a glider makes for a LOT more safe landing sites!
Hank

[Larry Lyons]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

My thoughts exactly, I was wondering how there was room in a Taylorcraft for a pilot with gonads that large!
Larry

[flyguy]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

1. Mixture is too rich with idle throttle setting enrichment when warm and possibly idle RPM is set too low. (I assume it only quits at idle?)
DC

Marv, you forgot one: Trippling the price of corn products, particularly in poor Latin American countries.

[Fred]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

My auto gas approval is only for auto gas with NO ethanol, check your paper work. Fred

[jim cooper]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

I used hight test Amoco in the stearman in the 80's. Worked well, but those days are gone forever. I use 100 Av gas (and mmo)as I said. I feel that with what the Stearman burned, and later the 195, even at todays prices I'm flying almost free! Many people use car gas but I quit as soon as corn gas was introduced. Its a scam, and only drives up food prices. (Stearman and 195 both burned between 11 and 13 gal. per hour depending on what you were doing.) I'd drain the tank (s) go over the lines and carb carefully as others have said. I think maybe, if it quits in air and its damaged, insurance co. might not pay with alcohol in gas. Or it could kill you, in which case you don't have to worry at all. JC

[N95334]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

I have two different magnetos, Bendix and a Case. Hey, it has been that way since 1980 as far as I know. Yes, I know my STC does not include alcohol. For insurance ???? Ya mean you can get insurance on these old crates? (To FAA, this story is strictly fictional and the names have been changed to protect the innocent if any) Good advice about flying close to the airfield until the problem(s) are found and fixed. I have had only two forced landings that ended with dead sticks since I have been flying (1968) and both were at airports near by. Either I have been lucky or God likes me. I believe in the latter. But I do thank you for reminding me to put safety first, not only for me, but for the rest of the private flying community. What one does affects all. No man is an island, remember that? We have a responsibility to do the right thing for future pilots coming up as well as ourselves. So maybe I need to apologize to you all for even using 10% alcohol gas in the first place and putting us in jeopardy of a media blitz.

[Edwin Otha]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

Dennis,
Most of the problems were covered already. I had one that realy had me scratching my head. Same as yours it would quit on roll out, never any problem other than that. And not all the time to boot. It ended up that a C85 induction spider got installed somewhere along the line. Took it off and had no more problems. I hope you find you culprit.
EO

[fearofpavement]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

Good healthy discussion on alcohol and auto fuel but I think the original question/issue is being forgotten about. If the plane is quitting on landing it doesn't make sense that it would be a restricted/swollen fuel hose. That would show up during take off or initial climb. The alcohol fuel may have caused this problem but is probably not the present reason. I think the carb is most likely to be the issue and probably something in the idle circuit. If not a restriction, I would look for a sunken float, idle mixture was mentioned already and certainly something to confirm as being correct. Idle speed was also mentioned and a good thing to x off the list. Alcohol is a very effective solvent for some items and decades worth of who knows what may have been dissolved or loosened and is now in the low point of the fuel system (carb) so that's where I would be looking.

Some useful info would be if the engine quits during the rollout or does it seem to already be "off" during the flare and touchdown. I remember an aircraft I used to fly being prone to doing this but don't remember why or even what kind of plane it was...

[barnstmr]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

Dont Rule out vapor lock in the fuel line between the gascolator and the carb inlet. Is your engine oil temp running really hot? Exhaust leaks in the engine compartment can cause this... or if your mag timing is out of whack you can be running abnormally hot.

[wmfife]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

The same thing happened to me the last time up. It was in cool weather- not hot; not cold (Oct. in Centr FL) and I was using 100LL, the only fuel it's had since I've owned it. And it also refused to re-start. Had to call for a tow... (after getting out and pushing it off the runway- )

What the shop did (the IA there did the work personally-) was to adjust the idle from 500 to 700 rpm... and told me I was good to go. He said it was probably just not broken in yet and the idle setting after t/d was insufficient to keep it going. But the wood prop had been changed to a metal one, adding 10lb. to the flyweight of the engine (as recommended by the manufacturer... ) -and it had never done that before with the wood, even in 80+º weather.

I have a BL12-65 with a low time O-145 Lycoming with Bendix mags.

Soon after that it went into the same shop for an annual. Five down gripes later (that I found; they missed) - three on the engine - it got pushed into my hangar. Annual aborted, two cyl. heads removed by Yours Truly while they watched... -um, *supervised*...

I am not technically legal to work on it myself. But at this point who else can I trust? Who else can I ask?

And to answer Hank's Q: no. I haven't flown it since.
There is still a lot to do on it. Like preserving a low-time sixty-plus-year-old engine. New cylinders and all. Not to mention period instruments, all original, and interior.

Meanwhile I am giving it what amounts to a complete top O.H. Maybe that will make a difference. I do want to fly it again before re-covering time comes up.

[Buell Powell]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

Just thinking. If the carb idle speed or mixture hasn't been adjusted and it started flooding then would die during rollout then my first guess would be something is settling between the needle and seat and the reason it is hard to start may be because the flooding has fouled the plugs so you should check them also. From tearing down carbs on old inboard boats that set over the winters with auto fuel I have seen a fine powder left in the bottoms of the float bowls which can cause a similar problem. Sometimes they start up and run fine then after running they wont idle--the bouncing around on the lake shakes the debris loose and then allows it to get into the ports and under the needle. Also besides swelling sometimes the rubber inside the fuel hoses will break down and flake off and usually show up in the fuel filter but without a filter would get in the carb. If the fuel hose has swelled and started cutting the fuel flow then it would probably show up at full power first but I would flush out all the fuel with alcohol and change them along with anything else rubber in the system.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

Bill,
Sounds like we are on the same road! I am doing my slow restore on my 41 BL (with a C) 12-65 trying to do the same kinds of things. Sure hope I don't have your engine problems.

You said you were doing some instrument work to get back to original. Do you have the sub panel with the instruments shock mounted on it like in the original 41?

Give me a yell. I have done a TON of research on the 41 Deluxe and would love to share experiences both ways. I am at hjarrett2 at cox dot net.

Be safe and watch for pot holes on this road. There are a bunch of them and some are REALLY DEEP!

Hank

[3Dreaming]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

Since this is happening at the end of the flight when things are hot. It could be weaker spark from the heat soaked mags. If carb heat is on you could have a hole in the exhaust system creating an extremely rich mixture (do you have a bigger than normal RPM drop when you check carb heat?). Check your idle speed with an electronic tachto see what your actual idle RPM is. Do this while the engine is hot. Tom

[wmfife]

Re: Engine quitting on landing

Hank,

You're on! I am thinking maybe we with the '41 models should form a separate sub-type club of some kind. But then these Lycomings are so different from the A65 I almost wonder if I belong on the same forum as the Continentals at all.

Whenever I have a tough question for my shop mechs they end up referring me to this list. It took Forrest just to set me straight about packing the tailwheel leaf springs. They had hardly a clue.

This is the most original '41 I've ever seen stock, as unrestored since manufacture. It's chopped some for replacement instruments but the tach is the original and the sub-panel is still in place. I have all the interior finishing materials. Just need to get it all apart and get started.

For the record, the only forced landing I ever had in a lightplane was behind a Continental 65. The Lycoming properly maintained is by design a tough little brute. Like you say- you just have to know where the potholes are.

...Cause they don't carry cellphones!

(...Or fire extinguishers..)

See you on the other side. And thanks.

Bill
[email protected]

(P.S.: Re: the original question: I do recall a post some years ago on this forum about someone in an aging Cessna 150 using auto gasohol blend and something about a hole in the cowl made by a piston rod..? No I'm not making this up. I am just glad for the new 100UL. Hope it's available soon. Would never use ethanol in the air myself.
-Just my 2c. )