Monday, November 29, 2010

Cessna 172 Engine Removal & Tear Down

The latest job that I'm working on in the hangar is the removal of an engine to inspect it. The aircraft is a 1961 Cessna 172B that has only 900 hours on it ... which in general aviation is an amazingly low number for an aircraft so old. Below is a video showing us removing the engine so it can be stripped down and inspected.
The engine from the aircraft is a Teledyne Continental o-300D (for those who wish to know). Once the engine is on the stand Andy, Ian and myself could start to strip down all the accessories, electrical cables, ducts, exhausts and baffles.
We then had to remove the cylinders. To do this you have to remove the rocker covers, rockers and push rods. After that the cylinder can be removed, which reveals the cylinder head that can then be removed.
Once all the cylinders have been removed, we had to split the crankcase open. First the accessory case is removed (with a bit of persuasion as you can see below), and the oil sump. Once these have been removed the crankcase can finally be split, the camshaft and crankshaft can be removed along with the tappets.
Now that everything has been disassembled, the parts can be cleaned up and inspected for cracks, abrasions, corrosion and measure all the shafts and bearings to see if they are within operational tolerances.
Once all this has been done, and all the parts that need replacing have been purchased, the reassembly will begin. I'll keep you up to date when this happens.

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