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eventfull
Rear engine more than 2500 hours. Two new cylinders only 200 hours. Yep, you guessed it. No 4 cylinder with only 200 hours decided to make the trip interesting. What happened was one of the studs that hold the rocker assembly together broke and put a hold in the valve cover. Little bit of an oil bath over the elevator but all turned out pretty good. Now this is really a one in a million event. Here's why!
As we we preparing to land at Jefferson - Jackson County (19A) we were passing through 4,000 feet for straight in approach on Rway 34. Nice clear day, you know one of those days you can see for ever. Well, off the right wing was Rway 9 at Athens/Ben Epps (AHN)
Herb was sitting in the back seat, Larry copilot when Herb said what is that noise? We found out real quick when oil pressure started to drop. Knowing that 19A was a small airport without much of a maint. crew we informed Atlanta ATC that we are experiencing an engine problem and request landing any runway at AHN. Boy they were good! Got clearance and contacted AHN tower that directed me to land Rway 9. He then proceeded to clear the traffic for us. The whole thing took only about 5 to 8 minutes and we were on the ground. The fire engines started to approach us but I informed the tower it was not necessary. We taxi up to the terminal, shut the front engine off (I shut the back engine down when I was on final to 9.
We took the left cowl off and it didn't take long to see the hole in the valve cover. I then took the valve cover off (I always carry tools with me) and that's when we found the broken stud. All else seemed pretty good. I asked if there was a mechanic on duty and was told yes. I went over to meet him (Iwill post both his name and business name when I find his business card). He came over with a tow tractor and we towed the plane to his hangar. Now for the good part!
Of course he didn't have the studs, gasket and valve cover in stock...who will? but....his friend has a skymaster on the airport and he called him and got the okay to strip the needed parts off his plane. Wow...a few hours later we were winging our way back to Michigan. Total cost..$215. Now is that luck or what?
Jerry
N34EC
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