What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

ECI cylinders from late 2011

ronrapp

Well Known Member
Hello all,

I own a flying RV-6 but did not built it. I was recently looking at the engine logbook and noticed that a log entry from September 30th, 2011 (nearly 2 years after the ECI cylinder AD was published) says that "4 new AEL65102 cylinders were installed".

I believe AEL65102 refers to ECI cylinders. But given the date of the installation, is it a given that these cylinders are affected by the AD? Or did ECI continue to produce cylinder assemblies that were not subject to the airworthiness directive?

I asked the previous owner and he said he wasn't aware of any AD on the cylinders. I'm going to look through the paperwork I have and see if I can glean any serial numbers, but if I can't find a paperwork trail, what's the best way to proceed?

--Ron
 
You should be able to read the serial numbers on two of the cylinders using flashlight and mirror. The two you won’t be able to read are a bit difficult, but doable. I used a tongue depressor with a thin slather of modeling clay on the end, slipped it between the two cylinders and used a a small screwdriver to wedge it into the serial number of the cylinder, carefully pry it free, then pull it out to read the imprint on the clay. Took a couple tries to get a good imprint but worked just fine.
I did this last year on my never flown IO-320 Mattituck with ECI cylinders. Mine were Group A cylinders, but I decided to just go ahead and replace them with new Superior Millennium assemblies. $$Ouch$$!
 
I did this last year on my never flown IO-320 Mattituck with ECI cylinders. Mine were Group A cylinders, but I decided to just go ahead and replace them with new Superior Millennium assemblies. $$Ouch$$!

Thanks for the tip on retrieving the serial numbers from the cylinders. Replacing all the jugs without ever having even flown them, now that's painful. I know ECI offered relatively inexpensive replacements for the Group B cylinders, maybe that's what precipitated the change on my aircraft. I guess one way or another I'll find out.

Thanks,

--Ron
 
I had ECI cylinders of the same part number and era (2011 - post AD). I wouldn't depend on them being good despite being out of the range of "bad" cylinders.

My experience was detailed in a thread I started here.
 
Back
Top