Morning William
G-RMAC is a Classic with 912ul and had the originally supplied mild
steel exhaust. The front left down pipe split at 180 hours. The split
followed the line of the weld where the pipe had been manufactured and
was approximately 2 inches long. Now running with stainless, but only
done 40 hours or so on that. Having heard about early problems with
downpipes I had supported my silencer box with a strap to the engine
mount, obviously this did not help and I have now removed it.
Regards
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of William
Mills
Sent: 11 February 2006 08:26
Subject: Europa-List: Classic Exhaust Downpipes
<william@wrmills.plus.com>
Dear All,
I have just purchased a third set of Classic exhaust downpipes. The
original rear port downpipe (mild steel) fractured and blew a hole on
the outside of the bend after 485 hours. This affected the engine so
badly that I had to limit the power to produce an extended glide to make
an emergency down wind landing. I replaced the whole exhaust system
(stainless steel).
I have just discovered a hairline fracture with grey exhaust deposit on
the outside of the bend on the starboard rear downpipe, so I have
purchased a set of replacement downpipes at 936 hours. I may decide to
replace the lot, or both rear, or one pipe at a time, to see how the
others last, but I am not quite sure.
It might be useful if others who have had to replace all or part of the
exhaust systems, on either Classics or XSs give a short report so that
we can see if there is any trend associated with hours and position of
any fracture.
I thought the first fracture might have been caused by the box having to
hang off the down pipes, causing additional stress when operating over
rough ground, so I asked Andy to weld some hanger lugs on the
replacement box so that I could support it off the crankcase at the
front and off the engine bearers at the back, but that did not appear to
be any help. In fact the second set only lasted 451 hours!
If anyone has any bright ideas, I would be most interested.
Still on exhaust matters, has anyone tried to seal the leakage from the
spigot and socket joints between the down pipes and the box stubs? I
still get some CO in the cockpit when climbing under full power, so I
was thinking of sealing them with RTV silicone. Has anyone tried that?
Best wishes,
William
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