Book Review:Maintenance/overhaul guide to Lycoming aircraft engines, Christy

Not a substitute for the Overhaul manual



This book contains an overview of maintenance and overhaul for the
WWII-era-technology air-cooled Lycoming engines which unfortunately
still power the vast majority of personal aircraft in the world. It is
useful to people who have worked on other engines, to provide an
overview of the procedures and tooling needed, but it contains little
information not in the Lycoming or military manuals, which are
available at reasonable cost in reprint form from suppliers in addition
to the extremely expensive one from the folks at 652 Oliver Street.

You will need to have the factory book with the most recent Table of
Limits if you are working on this as a certificated aircraft engine. If
you are using it as an experimental or airboat powerplant (are you sure
you really want one of these overpriced museum pieces??) it's not
necessary but can't be urged strongly enough because the first 'oops'
will cost you a lot of money.

Joe Christy was a good writer who turned out a lot of TAB-G/L books,
apparently for beer money, but he has been deceased-he lived to a
considerable age-for several years now. So there are things that aren't
covered in this book he probably would have. But by and large the
Lycoming is still the same engine it was at the beginning of the
postwar lightplane boom, and so this book is just as useful as it ever
was-okay supplemental reading or for the armchair mechanic, but not the
definitive (if dense) factory manual.