Starter question

Allen,

What sort of starter do you have on the Sundower? I had a
starter problem in my 172 this summer which turned out to
be a bad contactor in the starter itself. Mine was a Skytech
permanent magnet type starter for Lycoming engines. It has
a contactor on the starter and this failed intermittenantly.
Once in a while, I hit the key and would only hear a click. By
the time I'd get the cowling off and a meter attached to trouble
shoot, the problem was gone. This went on for a couple of
months until it finally failed long enough for my to get a positive
diagnosis that it was the contactor mounted on the stater and
not the Cessna starter contactor mounted on the firewall which
I initially suspected. I sent the starter back to Skytech and
they fixed it. It was a common problem on early versions of
these starters when used in a high vibration environment. Pits
or groves get worn into the contact plate in the contactor and
don't make good connection some of the time.

What time of day yesterday did you go flying? The reason I ask
is because I was at MBO at 1:30 pm yesterday trying to get my Aztec
started. I also had problems. It was cold soaked from the 22 degree low
early Monday morning and even though the OAT had risen by
early afternoon the effects on the battery and the oil made the engine
very hard to get turning.

When I hit the right enginer starter, it just moaned, wiggled the
prop, and could not over come the compression. Same thing on
the left engine. I thought I was going to need external power
assist, but after waiting a couple of minutes to let the battery
recover after each try, I finally got enough movement of the
prop to get it turn over. It is a good than that those engines
fire up with not much cranking.

Is your airplane hangared in the hangar closest to the office? If
so, I think I saw it during my visit. I used to have an airplane
based at MBO back in the mid 80s before I move to Austin.
That was the first time I've been there since then. Nice to see
the airport is still going strong.

Ronnie



"A Lieberma" wrote in message
. 18...
Went flying today. Go to crank the engine for start, nothing. Turn the
key, got like a jiggle of the prop. Turn all electrical things off,
figuring the battery drained, and then started just the alt and bat, same
thing, jiggle of the prop. Tried once more, and got the prop to turn and
fired right up.

Just had the durn starter replaced in July with a new one.

I don't think it was the battery, as nothing moved when I turned the key,
just a strange noise, no clicking like it would sound with a dead
battery. When I fired up the master and alternator, I heard a noise
sounding like something was draining the battery, yet the meter was
stable in the middle, not indicating any discharge.

Last week, when I cranked it, it struggled on the first turn of the prop,
but it started, so I had attributed it to maybe my battery being low, it
being very cold by MS standards, but after today, watching the electrical
amnmeter, the load was fine once the engine was running.

Am I having a bad run of starters, or should I be looking elsewhere for a
problem?

Grant you, I try to fly two times a week, but I would think I would have
gotten more starts out of this starter then 6 months worth.

Plane normally starts with one or two turns of the prop, so it's not like
the starter is running for any period of time or been abused.

Allen