Gipsy major

[bigflyingrob]

There were several variations on the 10-2 crank. The later ones were stronger but looked the same as the earlier ones. They are both splined drives. I have the numbers VKD 45164 and 30 ( MAY BE 36) FF6426966 on the paperwork of a new one I have obtained. Does anyone have alink to where ican tell which mod it is please. tried google till bored already!

[Roffa]

I would suggest dropping an email to de Havilland Support. (http://www.dhsupport.com/) Hopefully they'd be able to help.

[Malcom]

Have you tried the base information source, ie the TC holder - Deltair?

[smarthawke]

D*ltair? Ha! Font of all knowledge for Gipsys? Don't make me laugh. Might know a thing or two about pikeys but that's as close as it gets!

PS And yes I do have the proof, £30k's worth....

[gasax]

Would love to help but my manuals went with the aircraft. I think you can buy a near complete set from DH Support. The original maintenance manual really needs the full set of Technical notes as a lot of the original information was later modified.

My manual were the Bristol Siddeley ones and I seem to recall it was they (BS) who identified a number of crankshaft 'issues'. I think that was described in a series of notes. As with many of this type of publication there is no single comprehensive list.

Best of luck.

[Malcom]

Dont recall saying they were the font of all knowledge, just that they are TC holder.
Everybody in avaition knows TC holders know bog-all, but they hold the base information those who know better can work to:ok:

[stickandrudderman]

What about Vintech?

[smarthawke]

Sorry, Malcolm, didn't mean to misquote you - I just have kittens whenever anyone mentions the 'D' name...!!

Vintech are good, we use CFS AeroProducts Limited (http://www.cfsaeroproducts.co.uk/) at work who seem very helpful and reasonably priced.

[gasax]

From my experience I would strongly suggest getting your own set of manuals and notes. Many of the Gipsy 'experts' are very far from that.

I'm sure there is a hard core of people who really do 'know'. All you have to do is find them - but you'll only know they are not right when things go wrong and you're faced with yet another bill.

But there are dozens who do not know what they are talking about - not that it stops them doing work, flogging parts and offering completely erroneous advice.

Gipsy parts are nearly all ex-military these days and this offers many people a serious oppertunity to make a lot of money by selling parts which were effectively sold as scrap with a shiny new piece of paper.

This makes part numbers incredibly important as any idea of real traceablity for 50 year old spares is pretty laughable. Best of luck in sorting things out.

[A and C]

Make sure that ant "expert" has the qualifications to back up his work or opinions.

One owner I know of engaged an "expert" to do some work on his Gypsy, I did not know the guy or see any of the work done and was then asked for my siginture on the CRS! (I guess because I was the last licenced engineer to work on the aircraft).

As you might expect the answer to the request was not positive and the owner had to go to more expense to get another LAE to look at the job.

[LowNSlow]

I know that one of the owners of Vintech has a Gipsy nestling in the front of his Tiger Moth and that's a beauty. They have overhauled a large number of Dh's favourite four cylinder.

They did a top overhaul on my Cirrus and did a superb job. Not cheap but very good.