My Ney Enterprises Re-Man Lasted 200 hours

Caution to those pondering a zero-choke re-man by this company.

My O-470J lasted 200 hours before four cylinders showed mid-fifties
compression with Blackstone labs reporting symptoms of excessive ring
wear.

Even after admitting, view phone, that the test-stand results were
abnormal, Ney himself refused to stand behind the engine, on the
grounds that the plane's former owner -- his customer -- made him use
reconditioned cylinders.

Gene Kearns wrote:

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:06:10 -0500, N. Shane
wrote:


Caution to those pondering a zero-choke re-man by this company.

My O-470J lasted 200 hours before four cylinders showed mid-fifties
compression with Blackstone labs reporting symptoms of excessive ring
wear.

Even after admitting, view phone, that the test-stand results were
abnormal, Ney himself refused to stand behind the engine, on the
grounds that the plane's former owner -- his customer -- made him use
reconditioned cylinders.



My sympathies are with you, but I suspect the whole story behind this
tragedy involves a prior owner getting a "cheap" repair using customer
supplied parts. Having done business with Ney, myself, I suspect that
this owner was told by Ney Enterprises that they wouldn't stand behind
parts that were barely within acceptable limits.... and the customer
proceeded because their intent was to sell the aircraft with a
"re-manned" engine to jack up the price. It seems to me that there
was full disclosure. Apparently, from your own post, it is clear that
the test data was available prior to your purchase. If it wasn't in
the logs when you bought the aircraft... the prior owner *must* have
seen them. It appears to me that either the seller sought to hide
the information or you and/or your mechanic (at pre-buy) missed the
relevant figures.

Trade-a-Plane is full of ads that read TSMO 234 hrs., Time Since Top
Overhaul 2 hours.... Not all repairs are equal and you generally get
what you (or the seller) has paid for.

Your beef is with the seller and/or your mechanic, not with Ney...


Yes and no. Personally, I don't have much respect for anyone who will
let the customer talk them into doing substandard work. I'd tell
customers like that to talk to one of my competitors.


Matt

Gene Kearns wrote:

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 09:25:10 -0400, Matt Whiting wrote:


Gene Kearns wrote:


On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:06:10 -0500, N. Shane
wrote:



Caution to those pondering a zero-choke re-man by this company.

My O-470J lasted 200 hours before four cylinders showed mid-fifties
compression with Blackstone labs reporting symptoms of excessive ring
wear.

Even after admitting, view phone, that the test-stand results were
abnormal, Ney himself refused to stand behind the engine, on the
grounds that the plane's former owner -- his customer -- made him use
reconditioned cylinders.



My sympathies are with you, but I suspect the whole story behind this
tragedy involves a prior owner getting a "cheap" repair using customer
supplied parts. Having done business with Ney, myself, I suspect that
this owner was told by Ney Enterprises that they wouldn't stand behind
parts that were barely within acceptable limits.... and the customer
proceeded because their intent was to sell the aircraft with a
"re-manned" engine to jack up the price. It seems to me that there
was full disclosure. Apparently, from your own post, it is clear that
the test data was available prior to your purchase. If it wasn't in
the logs when you bought the aircraft... the prior owner *must* have
seen them. It appears to me that either the seller sought to hide
the information or you and/or your mechanic (at pre-buy) missed the
relevant figures.

Trade-a-Plane is full of ads that read TSMO 234 hrs., Time Since Top
Overhaul 2 hours.... Not all repairs are equal and you generally get
what you (or the seller) has paid for.

Your beef is with the seller and/or your mechanic, not with Ney...


Yes and no. Personally, I don't have much respect for anyone who will
let the customer talk them into doing substandard work. I'd tell
customers like that to talk to one of my competitors.


Matt


My turn to say, "yes and no."

I agree with you, but this poster has already said, in an earlier thread, that
the CHT was within limits, but at the highest end of the acceptable limit. I
don't think we can call this substandard work, although I am quite the soft
touch when we discuss "barely within limits" work. I simply don't like it, one
bit. We must give the contractor (Ney) the benefit of the doubt in that he did
nothing that was contrary to acceptable practices.

An overhaul that lasts only 200 hours is substandard work in my book.
Your standards may be different. :-)


IMHO, the customer *did* get screwed, but not by Ney.... he got screwed by
Ney's customer that called the shots.... again... probably, with full
disclosure.... which seems to muddy the waters a bit....

He got taken by both parties. A seller who didn't disclose things and
an engine overhauler who performed a substandard overhaul.


Matt

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Gene Kearns wrote:

Snippage

IMHO, the customer *did* get screwed, but not by Ney.... he got screwed
by
Ney's customer that called the shots.... again... probably, with full
disclosure.... which seems to muddy the waters a bit....

He got taken by both parties. A seller who didn't disclose things and
an engine overhauler who performed a substandard overhaul.


Matt

Without having all of the facts (i.e. getting Ney's story and the story from
the previous owner), I'd venture that Ney is free from criticism, and we can
examine the actions of the previous owner.

The previous owner takes the engine to Ney, says (in essence) "Fix the
bottom end, but don't replace any cylinders, unless absolutely necessary."
The cylinders are serviciable, so Ney re-uses them. At that point, the
owner has saved several thousand dollars on cylinder replacement costs, and
the cylinders *may* make TBO. Or, they may not. No way to tell. However, if
the cylinders do go bad, the owner has had the benefit of $4-$6k in his
pocket for some period of time, and can take this money and maybe a little
more, and get 4 (or 6..whatever) new jugs. No harm, no foul. However, in
the meantime, he decides to sell the plane. The engine still runs fine, so
he can honestly advertise it as a new rebuild that runs well. He still has
no idea if the cylinders will last 25 hours or 2000 hours. Neither does the
guy who has brand new cylinders.

Now, let's talk about the responsibilities of the new owner... What kind of
pre-purchase did he do? Did he take the time to figure out how many hours
the cylinders had? He should have. Also, he should have negotiated the
aircraft's price to reflect that. If he did, good for him, if he didn't, he
didn't do his due dilligence.

The bottom line is that whatever you buy without a warranty, you're taking
the risk that it'll break. You've got to understand that risk and walk away
from situations you don't like. If you buy it, then it breaks, you can't
blame the previous owner.

KB

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:06:10 -0500, N. Shane
wrote:

Caution to those pondering a zero-choke re-man by this company.

My O-470J lasted 200 hours before four cylinders showed mid-fifties
compression with Blackstone labs reporting symptoms of excessive ring
wear.

Even after admitting, view phone, that the test-stand results were
abnormal, Ney himself refused to stand behind the engine, on the
grounds that the plane's former owner -- his customer -- made him use
reconditioned cylinders.

So I guess he's saying that he can't build an engine unless he has new
TCM or Millennium cylinders. Sure was able to sign the logs and take
the money, wasn't he? And what's wrong with reconditioned cylinders?
Ever notice the crap that comes out of the continental factory?

Gene Kearns wrote:


Ever notice the crap that comes out of the continental factory?


In the last few years, Continental has, on virtually every part, changed
virtually every manufacturing process, in some way.... Is this question fishing
for old news, new news, or.... what?

Continental has repeatedly told us how much better their cylinders have
become. The evidence I have seen is exactly the opposite. I will be
putting an O-520 into my 182 this winter, no way I go with new
Continental cylinders.



Is Lycoming any better?

For cylinders yes. For everything else no.

Newps wrote in
:

Ever notice the crap that comes out of the continental factory?

Continental has repeatedly told us how much better their cylinders
have become. The evidence I have seen is exactly the opposite. I
will be putting an O-520 into my 182 this winter, no way I go with new
Continental cylinders.

Ask the guy two hangars down from me. Just had his second TOP in about 800
hours, on a TCM re-man with all new cylinders. Classic "break-in with ZERO
oil consumption" problem.

On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 08:37:43 -0500, "James M. Knox"
wrote:

Newps wrote in
:

Ever notice the crap that comes out of the continental factory?

Continental has repeatedly told us how much better their cylinders
have become. The evidence I have seen is exactly the opposite. I
will be putting an O-520 into my 182 this winter, no way I go with new
Continental cylinders.

Ask the guy two hangars down from me. Just had his second TOP in about 800
hours, on a TCM re-man with all new cylinders. Classic "break-in with ZERO
oil consumption" problem.

No matter who tries to be gallant and come to their rescue, they'll be
10+ others who have experienced the crap that TCM put out called
"cylinders". 700 hours is about all you can expect from a TCM
factory cylinder before taking it off and sending it out to be done
properly. Heck, I even know a few people who have taken the cylinders
off of a new TCM engine so that they may be corrected before putting
them into the plane. Sad story especially since they seem to spend
more on marketing than they do on quality assurance and control.

Al Marzo wrote in
:

No matter who tries to be gallant and come to their rescue, they'll be
10+ others who have experienced the crap that TCM put out called
"cylinders". 700 hours is about all you can expect from a TCM
factory cylinder before taking it off and sending it out to be done
properly.

To be fair, not ALL of them break in with this problem... but a large
number do.

Heck, I even know a few people who have taken the cylinders
off of a new TCM engine so that they may be corrected before putting
them into the plane.

True... LPM (a magazine widely respected in the field) insists no
reputable shop would put a new TCM cylinder onto an engine without at
least first mic'ing everything and almost always having to relap the
valves.

Sad story especially since they seem to spend
more on marketing than they do on quality assurance and control.

Also sad, since one of the things that started this whole sad (and
expensive) story years ago was an attempt by TCM to actually IMPROVE
their engines. Now their latest approach (almost certainly to stave off
a class action suit) is just to continually lower the limits on an
"airworthy" cylinder. It's now so low (26/80 with air leaking past the
rings and valves, and a pressurized crankcase) that pretty much any
piece of scrap iron is considered "good" by TCM.

Is Lycoming any better?

For cylinders yes. For everything else no.

This isn't a new issue. Looking back through the logbooks of my 69
Arrow, I see the engine was totally replaced at 200 hours (mid 70s),
no reason stated, no other damage reported or indicated.