I wanted to share my experience last week on a trip in my 6A in the hopes others will be better prepared if it should happen to them. Our 6A has an ECI IO-360 Titan engine with 115.5 hours on it. When descending into the pattern for a fuel stop the engine became very rough when RPM's were reduced to 1450. Anything below that was was impossible to hold. Playing with the mixture helped if it was leaned- richening caused more problems. Adding more RPM's helped to a degree. Now I am thinking of water (both tanks were checked during pre-flight and were fine) in the fuel or maybe a fouled plug but all the CHT/ECT's looked on the money. In fact all the gauges were reporting normal. I landed a bit fast, took on fuel, did the run-up which was fine and headed to my home airport at KLZU which was only 12 miles away. Enroute more problems with the engine- this time rougher. Asked for a straight in approach with no delay which was approved. Engine quit on the glide slope with 4 lights left in front of me. Landing was fine.
Problem- the spring on the idle mixture had broken off in flight and mixture screw vibrated to full rich position.
Lessons learned-
1. Next time an in-flight problem occurs a mechanic looks at it before we fly again. Abnormal operation is caused by something- we will address it and get it fixed.
2. We are going to remove the cowling every 3 months for an inspection.
3. Leaning would have made the engine run alot better- I should have tried it and noticed the improvement instead of using the usual settings.
Pete Joslin
RV-6A
IO-360 ECI Titan Engine
115.5 hours
Problem- the spring on the idle mixture had broken off in flight and mixture screw vibrated to full rich position.
Lessons learned-
1. Next time an in-flight problem occurs a mechanic looks at it before we fly again. Abnormal operation is caused by something- we will address it and get it fixed.
2. We are going to remove the cowling every 3 months for an inspection.
3. Leaning would have made the engine run alot better- I should have tried it and noticed the improvement instead of using the usual settings.
Pete Joslin
RV-6A
IO-360 ECI Titan Engine
115.5 hours