Saturday, January 27, 2018

Big Plane, Big Annual

First annual is always a big one, going on over a month now. I had nothing major on the list going in, just a few squawks and things I wanted them to check and fix. One item was some oil leaking from the left prop hub which was finding it's way to the top of the Nacelle. When they took the prop off they found the o-ring seal was installed in the wrong place.  :bat: Ok easy fix... they went to check the other side assuming it was also installed incorrectly, and found some of the red oil mixed with engine oil.  

Uh oh... off to the prop shop for a reseal. Turns out it needed a new cylinder ($1700), and they found some corrosion on the blades at the snap ring grooves. Doh... glad they found it though, they wouldn't have taken off that prop and seen this had I not had the small oil leak on the other one!  :bugeye: 300 hr McCauley's... Call me a Hartzell fan.... and now I'm not getting warm fuzzies about the prop on the other side so I had them pull that one off for an IRAN/Reseal as well. We'll see what that reveals.  

Of course while the plane is down might as well get ADSB compliant so also installing a GTX-345. So 4k-ish for the right prop, 2k at least for the left prop, 5k for the transponder plus install labor, wing bolt AD and well over 100 hrs of annual labor + misc parts....  :sad: but a trusty reliable and well maintained TBone... priceless!  :D 

hopefully get her back next week finally.