[Bob Axsom]

My gyro instrument bearings are telling me they are thinking about stop all the spinning disc activity. In my old environment I knew certain instrument overhaul facilities could not be relied upon for long instrument life after overhaul. Can anyone recommend a good facility around Northwest Arkansas?

Bob Axsom

 

[Bob Axsom]

Found one

Rudy Aaircraft Instruments in Rudy, Arkansas (well fairly rear by). I did a Google search and found one that I had dealt with once before in Wichita. They wanted between $700 and $800 for each instrument whether they overhaul yours or you get an overhauled replacement. In GA news I saw an ad for Rudy Aircraft Instruments giving a price of $260 each for overhauling mine. I checked with my friend Barry West and he said he had a couple of instruments overhauled by them in two different airplanes and he had no problem with either one. I called and I liked what I heard so I pulled both instruments and drove down there. There is no airport and the facility is hard to find - very similar to trying to find Mike Seager's grass strip by Vernonia, OR. The population sign at Rudy reads "72" but Rudy Aircraft Instruments is out in the country. Map Quest was out of date and I had to ask for directions. Anyway, I got there and the people were very nice and the facility looks good. One of the Techs is in Albuquerque with his sick mother so my instruments will not be ready until Friday. I explained the I bought them in the late 1990s, installed them in April 2000 and did not fly the plane until March of 2004 and I was told that the instrument have a light compound lubricant that separates after a year of non-use and my 275 hours life under those conditions is unusually good. He said if you know your gyro instruments are not going to be used for over a year you should run them occassionaly. The two parts will stay in solution and and the short bearing life can be avoided. That takes some additional hardware and setup to implement and it is too late for me but someone out there may benefit from this info.

Bob Axsom

 

[Bob Axsom]

Good experience

The shop is run by Michael McIntosh and you can't find it from here no matter where "here" is. I drove down there from Fayetteville, Arkansas using Map Quest information which is not current. Now, I'm not sure how many of you have been to northwest Arkansas but it is awesomely beautiful wilderness country. It was almost worth the gyro problem to get to experience the countryside. The name of the company is Rudy Aircraft Instruments, Inc. at 4711 Old Bowman Road, Rudy Arkansas 72952, Phone 479-474-8759. Mike and his wife move there from Houston and started the business in 1987. It seems that Rudy, population 72, has a new bridge that Map Quest doesn't know about. I stopped at the post office in Rudy (yes they have a nice one in fact) to get directions.

When I arrived I found a nice but not pretentious facility and I dealt directly with Mike to get the overhaul accomplished. He told me that the lubricant compound that the manufacturer used to work with the vaccum driven instruments had separated in the 6 years from manufacture to my first flight and most subjected to this scenario do not last 275 flight hours as mine had. The particals that separated out of the fluid were spread through out the two instruments and ironically are a source of wear in this state. A bearing in the DG was frozen and the rotor shaft was ground to destruction. This is certainly consistent with what I saw and heard in the cockpit. I would not be at all surprised if this "abrasive contamination" contributed to the vacuum pump failure I had shortly before the Gyros began squawling and jerking so bad that they could not be ignored. I reinstalled the overhauled instruments and they flight tested great. I saved over $1,000 dollars from the price quoted for an overhaul of my instruments by the company in Wichita.

Bob Axsom