Got a Lycoming back together yesterday and it fired on the first try.

3 comments

3 Comments

Wait, did you torque the cylinder base nuts to the right spec? I see a lot of people skip the re-torque after the first heat cycle and that's how you get leaks later lol. Lycomings are pretty forgiving but if you didn't warm it up good and then re-torque, you might have a problem down the road. Also, did you prime it right? Those primer lines can be tricky if they're old, I've had them leak air and cause hard starts even when everything else was perfect. Just saw a guy at my field have to pull a jug off because he torqued it cold and didn't do the re-torque, ended up with a blown gasket. Not trying to be a downer, just want your new build to stay together lol.

bennett.evan6d ago

Man, that reminds me of the time my buddy forgot to safety wire his oil filter and we found out halfway to Oshkosh. Oil pressure started dropping like a rock and we had to land in some farmer's field. Nice guy, let us borrow his tractor to tow the plane to a hangar.

emerym361h ago

But did you re-torque those cylinder base nuts after getting it hot? I've seen too many builds come apart because someone skipped that step and thought they were fine. A first fire is great, but the real test is after a few hours of running.