Greetings:
On a flight from Salt Lake City to Ryan Field near West Glacier Montana, I stopped for fuel in Dillon, MT (KDLN). After fueling, I performed a runup. When I flipped the switch off for Ignition "A" the engine quit. The engine will only run if lane A is on. The switch for "B" does nothing, regardless whether it is on or off (although the green light on the switch is on when on and off when off).
I taxied back to the ramp. Fortunately I was able to get a ride to West Glacier, but the airplane is stranded. I either need to find a way to fix it in Dillon, or trailer it back to Salt Lake.
I tried the following with the limited tools I had:
I spoke to a friend of mine who had a similar problem on his RV-12 in Southern Utah. He had both modules die within hours of each other. I'm sure glad I didn't try and fly on one ignition! A gentleman camped at Ryan field said he had a friend who had to replace both ignition modules on a 912 as well. Apparently, they are a private label Ducati product, and when they get hot, they can die. Sounds eerily similar to our voltage regulator ...
I'll be driving back through Dillon later in the week. I need to decide if I'm going to trailer it, or try and fix it in place. Any advice? If you've had ignition problems on a Rotax 912ULS, please chime in!!!
Thank you so much!
On a flight from Salt Lake City to Ryan Field near West Glacier Montana, I stopped for fuel in Dillon, MT (KDLN). After fueling, I performed a runup. When I flipped the switch off for Ignition "A" the engine quit. The engine will only run if lane A is on. The switch for "B" does nothing, regardless whether it is on or off (although the green light on the switch is on when on and off when off).
I taxied back to the ramp. Fortunately I was able to get a ride to West Glacier, but the airplane is stranded. I either need to find a way to fix it in Dillon, or trailer it back to Salt Lake.
I tried the following with the limited tools I had:
- Swapped ignition modules. I ran the A1 and A2 connectors in to ignition module "B" and the B1 and B2 connectors into ignition module "A." It made no difference. I could run the engine with switch "A" on (but it died when switch "A" was turned off) and if I switched "B" on and off, it did nothing.
- I checked the continuity on the input side of the modules (connectors A1 and B1) for the white wires coming from the switches. Both behaved properly - with the ignition switches off there was continuity to ground, but when the switches were on there was not.
- I checked the ignition ground connections to the two bolts on the right intake manifold, including the jumper wire to the clamp on the aft bolt of the ignition module mount. All wires looked fine. I inspected all of the wires at the harness plug connectors and everything looked good.
- I did not test the trigger coils because I thought it unlikely that I'd lose two at the same time.
- I turned on the choke running at low RPM and 4000 RPM and the problem was the same with the choke on and off. I think it unlikely that it is a carb problem.
- After I gave up testing, I ran the engine on switch "A" to taxi the airplane to the tie down area. Lane "B" came partially alive. When I switched off switch "B" the engine ran really rough at low idle. I didn't feel comfortable running it that rough at high idle, so I turned off the engine.
I spoke to a friend of mine who had a similar problem on his RV-12 in Southern Utah. He had both modules die within hours of each other. I'm sure glad I didn't try and fly on one ignition! A gentleman camped at Ryan field said he had a friend who had to replace both ignition modules on a 912 as well. Apparently, they are a private label Ducati product, and when they get hot, they can die. Sounds eerily similar to our voltage regulator ...
I'll be driving back through Dillon later in the week. I need to decide if I'm going to trailer it, or try and fix it in place. Any advice? If you've had ignition problems on a Rotax 912ULS, please chime in!!!
Thank you so much!