Broken starter

flion · #1 11-25-2009, 10:14 PM

It was a beautiful Sunday flight from Flagstaff to Marana near Tucson. We had breakfast and then were heading to El Tiro to view the glider operations. I climbed into my plane, cleared, and hit the starter ... "GRIND!!!". Off with the cowl to discover that the housing of my lightweight SkyTec (ls series) starter has cracked leaving the spline gear floating so that it barely touches the ring gear. Looks like a couple of teeth on the ring gear got a bit chewed but otherwise not bad. Oh, well, hitch a ride in a *shudder* spam can and enjoy the rest of the day; I'll come back for the RV.

In fact, it was today. Another RV builder had a hi-torque version of the starter from a Tailwind that is earmarked for the -6A he's building (thanks, Brad) that he loaned me and a friend with a Bonanza ferried me down to Marana and helped me replace the starter. It took about an hour and we were back in the air for a fun flight back up to Flagstaff; I was two miles in trail of the Bonanza on departure and beat it back by about 12 NM. Better still, starting at 1800MSL, I was at 9500 while the Bonanza was still at 7000.

Anyway, I had already filled out an RA for the starter and it was on it's way back to SkyTec as quick as I could get to the shipping office. The starter was originally delivered with my engine but, as we know, Superior went belly up. A call to Superior had them suggest my going straight to SkyTec for warranty support for the starter. However, the person I talked to (I'm being deliberately vague until it's all done with) told me to go ahead and return the ring gear and they would either repair or replace. That includes installing the sensor magnets for the Lightspeed ignition, if necessary. So, it looks like Superior is getting back on track as quickly as possible.

You can imagine how my heart sank when the starter failed but I have to admit that so far the rest of the process has been actually fun. I really enjoyed the extra flying and it was a new experience for me to do a repair on the ramp of a strange airport. Also, the timing works out well, because I was planning to do my annual this week, so the aircraft will not be down for any extra time. Could have been a lot worse, right?

AltonD · #2 11-26-2009, 04:56 AM

Same issue for me, except I was at the home airport and it was just a ground run-up. Starter was till in warranty. Rich at skytec replaced the mount with a new, stronger casting. No charge.

fstringham7a · #3 11-26-2009, 09:22 AM

Hi Patrick

Back in July 2009 it happened to me.......

SkyTech was great to work with the new set up SO FAR has worked great!!!

Here is a thread with some Pix of the before an after. Is this similar to your experience?

http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...broken+starter

Frank @ 1L8 ... RV7A ... BUZZ ... N74BZ ... Flying with Respect

flion · #4 11-26-2009, 04:08 PM

Similar but not exactly. My starter originally looked like your second picture and my problem didn't start at the mount; it was just in front of that. Sorry for the awful picture (taken in the sun on the ramp).

By the way, the temporary replacement was a high torque model, and it fit just fine. I'm tempted to keep it.