I recently had have my rear turbo and exhaust pulled and overhauled.
My saga continues...
It took all Wednesday, mainly because he wasn't the one who tore it apart, but Mark got everything put back together. It was dark and cold, so we decided to hold off on a test flight until the next morning, but did run the engines for a while including a run-up to see the rear turbo kick-in. The next morning (Thur) I grabbed the plane and took off from Monroe (EQY) to meet Mark up at Concord (JQF) so he could give me the logs and make a final check. Everything seemed fine until I got into the downwind at Concord, then I heard a loud pop and the plane shuddered a second (similar to when the landing gear locks into place on both the sound and shudder). I looked out and my landing gear was still up, but the oil pressure on the rear engine was starting to drop. I put down my landing gear and pulled power back to idle on the rear engine (it was still running but the oil pressure continued to be lower than I was comfortable with seeing). I shut down the rear engine over the numbers and taxied to the ramp. After removing the rear cowling on the pilot side (same side as Turbo) I saw the source of all the oil dripping down -- there is a crack in the actual engine case. The engine through bolts where the turbo mounts were torqued according to the manual at 500 inches. Mark had been debating backing that off, but never did.
In any case, the actual case now has a crack in it and I am trying to figure out if I have any options besides getting a whole engine replacement (this one only has about 300 hours on it). If you have any ideas and/or sources to use for research, I would appreciate it. After spending close to $6K in parts and labor over the past month, for this 15 minute flight, my wife is getting less understanding with each new issue - so I need to see if there is a cost-effective solution available.
As I said, my saga continues...
Robert Morris
rmorris@agsi.us
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Jeep cherokee