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1. 02:56 PM - Follow-up - BPE Engine Rebuild Seminar (Matthew Brandes)
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| Subject: | Follow-up - BPE Engine Rebuild Seminar |
--> RV9-List message posted by: "Matthew Brandes" <matthew@n523rv.com>
This past Saturday, in front of 27 fellow aviators and with the assistance
of Allen and Mike from Barrett Precision Engines
(http://www.barrettprecisionengines.com), I rebuilt my Lycoming O-320-D2J.
I purchased this engine almost two years ago and decided that it needed an
overhaul before flying. I tossed out the idea of an engine rebuild seminar
for our local EAA chapter members to Allen Barrett at BPE and he bit. I
wanted to be involved in the tear down and rebuild of the engine but didn't
feel comfortable doing it myself. Allen saw an opportunity to share his
wealth of knowledge and get some exposure out of the deal. It was a perfect
match.
On Friday, May 13th, my wife and I drove down to Tulsa, OK (from Kansas
City) and we took the engine apart with the assistance of their lead shop
tech Mike. It went very smoothly and only took a couple of hours. The
other shop people got a kick out of some farm boy from Kansas tearing an
engine apart. (Pictures at: http://n523rv.com/engine). We were generally
pleased with the condition of the engine, however, things took a bad turn
for the worse when the crank was rejected for pitting, the pistons had
cracks and the mags were shot. We moved forward with the overhaul and set a
date of September 24th for the seminar. I promoted the seminar in various
places, primarily among our local EAA chapters.
Saturday, September 24th arrived and it was a perfect day. Allen and Mike
arrived the night before with all the pieces of the engine and had it all
setup in EAA Chapter 91's hangar ready to go. We started the day at 8:00
with some coffee and donuts while Allen talked about the process we were
about to through. We also talked about how to purchase engine cores and
what to watch for. (The city decided that it would be a good day to repave
the only road leading to the airport, so we gave attendee's a little extra
time to arrive.)
About 9:00am we moved to the hangar area to start the build. All of the
parts had been previously checked and dimensioned, so it was merely a task
of assembling the parts. Since this was my engine, I worked with Mike to do
the assembly while Allen narrated and fielded questions. We broke for lunch
around 12:00 at which point we had the case halves on and the accessory had
just been bolted on. My wife served us a wonder lunch of lasagna, salad and
garlic bread. After lunch we went back out and finished assembling the
engine with completion coming around 5:15 or so. We stopped several times
throughout the day to let people come up and get a closer look at what we
had done. (Can't have 27 people standing around you at once.)
It's actually quite amazing that we ran into no major issues. Allen and
Mike brought every part and every tool we needed to assemble the engine.
Early in the day, they realized that we were missing a castle nut for the
oil pump housing. The plan was to continue with the build and they would
remove the accessory case from the engine when they got the engine back to
Tulsa and replace the nut. Just as we were finishing up installing the
accessory case, Mike pulled out the fittings for the oil cooler lines to
install and found the castle nut nicely sitting inside one of them!
Obviously be careful where nuts and bolts can fall. During lunch, Mike and
Allen pulled the accessory case off and installed the nut and safetied the
oil pump housing. The other small issue that came up at the very wend was
not having a push-rod the correct length to bring one of the rockers into
tolerance. I was no big deal as they installed one as soon as they got back
to Tulsa.
FINAL ANALYSIS:
The engine seminar was a great idea and it came together very well. All of
the participants were extremely appreciative of the opportunity. Mike,
Allen and the crew at BPE were fantastic to work with. I'm certainly glad
that I did not attempt the overhaul on my own, the engines are pretty basic
but there are a lot of things you need to know. I'll never again purchase a
used engine!
If you need an engine or an engine overhaul, give Allen a call... you won't
be sorry. (918-835-1089)
Thanks go out to my wife for making lunch and the members of EAA Chapter 91
for allowing us to use their beautiful hangar!
Matthew Brandes,
Van's RV-9A (Wiring)
#90569
<http://www.n523rv.com/> http://www.n523rv.com
EAA Chapter 1329 President
EAA Chapter 868 Web Editor
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