Quality Controll, O/H Parts

[clunckdriver]

During the last two years many items on my little aircraft reached their TBO or calender dates, what I have found is that there seems to be a decline in the QA of many of these parts, eg: In the last month we have replaced two Tach Gens, overhauled, tagged, it took us three units before we had a servcieable unit, two failed at under five hours.{Yes they were installed as per spec} Had a R/H engine driven alternator fail, replaced with new, faulty oil seal, oil all over the place, also alternator clutch unit faulty. All these parts were purchased from aproved supliers, with tags and full traceability. I hesitate to mention the supliers but are others finding a decline in the QA of parts, or am I just getting old and cranky?

[muduckace]

Absolutely but there is another factor, the age of the component. What I suspect is that inspection criteria do not expand as a part ages, the shop is probably just doing the overhaul by the book and the book does not cover problems or trends that occur with age.

I was just on an aircraft the other day that had 6 trancievers, 4 antennae, and 2 indicators thrown at the same problem. I sat on the plane swapping components looking to see if this intermittant problem would show it's self for 2 hours before I confirmed another BFS tranciever to be the fault.

[clunckdriver]

Good point Muduckace,the PW series of round engines are an example of this, how many cycles are REALLY on the con rods and Cyl heads when they return tagged? In my case we are runing GITSO engines on the 400 series Cessna twins, Ram seem to do a great job, our problem is with the accesories, we just installed our second alternator on the right side, will see how this one goes, Regards, Clunck.

[spannersatcx]

intermittant problem = wiring problem!

[Mr @ Spotty M]

Yes spannersatcx, but you will never get the fairy's to check that until all the heavy bits have been changed a number of times. :ok:

[muduckace]

Did not mention it because wiring checks are a no brainer at the above mentioned point, had a TRD on all the coax. I have heard stories of people going through 7 bfs components, I have personally gone through 3 or 4 on a system I had verified good by using a known good box borrowed from the redundant system. Lots of tired crap parts when you are dealing with older aircraft.

[clunckdriver]

Good news, looks like at last we have both left tach gen and right alternator up and running, I understand the company which did one of the rebuilds is under the gun from the FAA as a result of complaints from operators, too bad they are the only game in town around here.

[411A]

I understand the company which did one of the rebuilds is under the gun from the FAA as a result of complaints from operators, too bad they are the only game in town around here.



Kelly by any chance?
And, as for TCM GTSIO engines, Continental still makes these new, as well as new parts, so this should not be a problem.
In fact, the GTSIO engine is considered one of the best engines TCM ever produced.

[clunckdriver]

411A, you got it right first time, yes treated right the GITSOs are very good, mine have Ram B conversion as we have to stagger out of some pretty short strips. The problem will be if the FAA de certify some of these outfits there is nobody else with the rights to build the units, Catch 22 for sure.

[clunckdriver]

I gues I spoke too soon, just got in after three fairly short legs, oil all over the right engine from the second Alternator. On checking the O'haul tag we found it was assembled by the same person and is only two serial numbers away from the previous faulty one. On Monday will try to find another source, also am going to file a Service Difficulty Report {SDR} with TC, so far eight hours of shop time gone down the sink! 411A, yes its Kelly again, just cant bellive this crap.

[A and C]

Some very interesting coments on O/H parts, I too have found that O/H quality is "variable" to say the least.

As the company that I work for is just about to get a JAR 145 approval may be we should look at setting up a quality component O/H shop. My only worry with this is I know we would be undercut on price because it takes longer to build a quality product. The beancounters seem to rule the world at the moment and with that in mind I am not sure if this is a good business plan.

[Dufo]

I would say that 1/5 of green tagged parts we get are somehow U/S.
The worst was a complete overhauled GE CT7 engine which had fractured carbon seal.. guess what happened on first engine run :bored: