Hmm, good topic me thinks, learning from others experiences is a good thing. Not that mine is much to learn from...
Aircraft: C182
Fuel: 5Hrs
Flight Planned 1.5 hours
Crew: 1 (me!)
Pax : 3
Baggage: about 20kg
Problem: Engine Faliure
Details
Flying from A to B 9000' amsl with mixture leaned accordingly the weather started to close in below and I decided to decend below the cloud (still a fair 3000' AGL).
Micture rich and carb heat hot I proceeded to decend through a good gap in the cloud and things looked and sounded fine. Once below the cloud I open the throttle to resume the cruise to which the engine responded with a surge, not once, not twice but three times and the engine died. Boy did that wake me up!
At this point I thought many obsenities but followed through my training and did my checks, changing tanks, checking carb heat etc, and the restart failed. Damn!
After a passenger brief and well placed for my chosen field the second restart succeeded. This I had never thought would happen and was rather unprepared to now have a running engine. I decided to stay near the field for the next 15 mins and all seemed well. I then continued on my flight for another 20 mins landing safely.
Post incident found that the float in the carberettor had a pinhole in it.