What kind of finds during condition inspection

It's annual condition inspection time again. If you have had findings on your airplane that is noteworthy could you please share? So far I have found the nut that holds the jumper strip that connects the master sylonoid to the starter sylonoid loose. Also there's minor signs of the fab air box rubbing the cowl. Are there any areas on these planes prone to common problems? Any of you with higher time airplanes who can chime in and enlighten?

Best,

One area of concern for taildraggers is the lower engine mount attachments where the gear sockets attach. Check the backside of this weldment where the reinforcement bracket is welded for cracking.

f1rocket said:

One area of concern for taildraggers is the lower engine mount attachments where the gear sockets attach. Check the backside of this weldment where the reinforcement bracket is welded for cracking.

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A next door hangar neighbor with a RV-4 is lucky to be alive....during a condition inspection last year the top engine mount bolts were found to be leaning forward about a half inch where they come through the firewall. Both top internal corner gussets were found broken. One more loop, and the engine would have departed the airplane.

dd

Nose Gear Strut

Bryan, when you get the nose wheel off the ground, grab the wheel pant and try to rotate the strut. The bolt hole in the engine mount can elongate. I heard an RV9 at Van's flyin go clunk-clunk as it turned in front of me, presumably due to a loose strut.
Leland
RV9A awaiting paint
125 hours

4 eyes better than 2

Any thing vibrating from the engine, especially the air box, brackets, baffles, exhaust. The lower engine bolt holes on taildraggers? I hear Randy but that was with early RV4's mostly and it depends on how you fly (really land) and the type of runway.

Consider an A&P or AI, even if you have to pay for an hour. Watch them and see what they do, you will learn how to inspect and what to look for. They also may have maintenance suggestions. I know I learned a lot working with an AI doing condition inspections on my own RV. Even an experienced set of eyes of another builder helps.

It's the cliche you don't know what you are looking for until you see it.

Have it all apart, give them a mirror, flashlight and hour to crawl around and look at everything. You would be surprised what they might find, fretting, rubbing, wear, cracks, loose fasteners and so on. While its apart might as well have people look at your beautiful work.

Loose engine mount to airframe bolts

What I found on my -6 was after 100hours TT, the bolts that hold the engine mount to the airframe were loose. Yes they were torqued then cotter keyed when new but how they got loose I don't know. I'm guessing just like anything else that is torqued needs re-torqued after some run time. I found this because the nuts wiggled in the cotter key hole, so I removed the cotter keys and re-torqued them. Another 360 hours later no problem.

Which bolts?

rv969wf said:

What I found on my -6 was after 100hours TT, the bolts that hold the engine mount to the airframe were loose. Yes they were torqued then cotter keyed when new but how they got loose I don't know. I'm guessing just like anything else that is torqued needs re-torqued after some run time. I found this because the nuts wiggled in the cotter key hole, so I removed the cotter keys and re-torqued them. Another 360 hours later no problem.

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Alan.... were they the two bolts in the lower center section of the mount?

A lot of folks have shimmed these two spots, and if you had no shims, and if there was an existing distortion in the mount.....

gil in Tucson

Loose bolts on mount to airframe

A lot of folks have shimmed these two spots, and if you had no shims, and if there was an existing distortion in the mount.....

gil in Tucson[/QUOTE]

Hi Gil, all of them were loose with no shims. I even inspected the gusset area up inside the fuselage and everything there was OK. Engine mount looks good with no problems there either. Hope this helps. AJ