Silvaire wrote:
unless somebody else develops PMA parts to compete
Something completely different, but at Aero Friedrichshafen this year, I heard of a european turbocharger manufacturer who wanted to design PMA turbos for Lycoming and Conti’s, to compete with Hartzell.
I think/hope in the long run Hartzell’s hurting itself. Competition will eventually pick up.
How much is the shipping cost? Is the difference in shipping between EU and US offset by the lower price?
Maybe $100 each way, which in the overall picture is ok, and using a company known to do a good job is more important, especially on such an important part. QAA have done a number of D3000 overhauls for me and in every case the mag drop was exactly the same on both halves.
I once used a well known UK firm and due to some irregularities found when it came back had to re-OH the magneto (at QAA) so had to pay twice…
Peter wrote:
due to some irregularities found when it came back had to re-OH the magneto
It’s really weird how you can mess up a magneto overhaul, a magneto doesn’t contain that many parts.
In steps (in general for Bendix mags):
(Short version)
(There’s a bit more to it, but writing it down the list is getting longer than I originally thought(in my head), (can write down the long version too for anyone who’s interested)).
I just wanted to say if you follow the manual, it’s really not that difficult to overhaul a magneto assuming you have the right equipment and parts in stock. For a well known shop to mess up so bad that you need a re-overhaul, that’s something I’ve never heard off, they must have had either a very inexperienced (unsupervised) technician working on your mag or knowingly skipped a few steps or didn’t replace all mandatory replacement items… I don’t know.
Do you by any chance have records of and or pictures of that mag (of what was wrong with it), I’d be interested to see/know what went wrong.
I mentioned it here. AFAIK the company was bought by another some years later.
The thing is that I’ve been in this GA game, as an owner, for 22 years, and it continues to surprise me how many people can’t do the most basic stuff. But that is no more than a reflection of wider society really…
So true,
I also think it’s increasingly hard for companies to find good staff, many people just don’t want to work anymore, or don’t care. No matter what industry you’re in, It’s getting hard just to find people who still take pride in their work. :-(
I just believed that only in my region does the problem of inaccurate and incompetent staff. Sadly, the good workforce has disappeared. I do my annuals with my mechanic together. Although he is a good guy, sometimes I have to point to the manual.
Yes, with the proper tools, anyone with basic engineering and mechanical knowledge can easily do many things. I am just getting afraid to send my magneto to any shops :).
I suggest doing what I did and buy one outright and keep an overhauled one on the shelf as a spare. Then you have zero downtime, and the shipping delay to the US is fine. I paid $2.5k, IIRC; ask QAA in Tulsa how much they want for an overhauled unit.
Thanks,
3100 USD but backorder only. I think this company also does the Hydraulic packs too…
I have as spares: magneto, fuel servo, various electrical parts e.g. the weird French circuit breakers, Flo-Scan fuel totaliser transducer (plus the instrument), KI256, KEA130A, KC225 computers, all the servos, most gaskets, etc.
A spare D3000 mag is definitely worth having, if only to save the obvious downtime while overhauling.
Peter wrote:
A spare D3000 mag is definitely worth having, if only to save the obvious downtime while overhauling.
Well if you’re gonna send it to QAA it’s almost a requirement, last I heard they quoted 5 weeks for an overhaul. (Which is insane, knowing the job can easily be done in 2 days).
Also, I wanted to say, not everything is done better in the US, they’re facing the exact same problems as many a European company, and the argument of volumes being higher in the US, so US companies would have more experience is also kinda false since there are just a lot more of them.