Clean and lube a Magnaflight Starter every 50 hrs?

I have a Magnaflight Starter on my 0360 A1A in my RV4. There is a label on it that says I should CLEAN and Lube it with silicone spray every 50 hrs.

Would anyone have anything from Magnaflight that is clear on what exactly they want cleaned? Over the last 35 years I have had 1/2 dozen factory aircraft and I have never cleaned or even replaced a starter. This is my 1st Experimental.

So with this new lightweight technology I'm thinking this is a little excessive that every year or 50 hrs that I'm going to need to pull the starter to clean and lube it?

Or will I get away with just spraying some silicone in the bendix while I have the cowl off?

Thanks

Tim

I did a little reading on the starter you have on another forum (Supercub) so you may find some helpful information there.

If it was my starter and the maintanence was recommended by the manufacturer, I would at the least pull the bendix off and clean and lube the armature.

I gave it a shot of silicone the best I could do without removing it. For something that might be used 25 or 50 times in a year for a couple of seconds is getting to be pretty high maintenance. It's my time but if we had to pay an AME to do this yearly then the costs start climbing quickly.

I'll run it a long as it runs then replace it with something that might be of a normal lower maintenance when it fails. If it needs to be torn apart and cleaned this frequently then I'm thinking it's a band-aid solution for something else.

riobison said:

I gave it a shot of silicone the best I could do without removing it. For something that might be used 25 or 50 times in a year for a couple of seconds is getting to be pretty high maintenance. It's my time but if we had to pay an AME to do this yearly then the costs start climbing quickly.

I'll run it a long as it runs then replace it with something that might be of a normal lower maintenance when it fails. If it needs to be torn apart and cleaned this frequently then I'm thinking it's a band-aid solution for something else.

Click to expand...

I couldn't agree with you more.