Hello all: I haven’t been posting much in awhile, but I wanted to let you know of a problem with our Cirrus SR20 to point out to everyone.
Last week, my partner noticed a “thumping” noise on approach. Took the mechanic up in it, and they found no faults. We had them check the stuff that was suggested in this forum: exhuast pipes banging, wing root fairing, but the mechanic said they would check the baffling under the cowling the following week. They noted no problems with the other items.
I go in to fly it last weekend. I hadn’t flown in almost 10 days. Got in, started it and thought to myself… something doesn’t sound quite right… But I couldn’t put my finger on it. I start to taxi and think again, the engine has an odd noise, or does it… it must be my imagination.
On run up, I get it. The engine is making a similar noise that you car makes when it is low on oil. That sort of tapping noise within the engine. I rev and rev and rev and I’m sure that the engine doesn’t sound normal.
I taxi back and put it away. We call the shop on Monday and they say they’ll look at it. We call on Wednesday and they say they are very busy and we’ll get to it. We call them today and they say they can’t get to it this week. My partner asks “would you mind if we just bring it over to you so you can listen to it, to see if we are crazy…” They say sure.
They don’t hear anything. My partner asks them to take off the cowling and take a look. They do, and find that one of the “exhaust pipes from one of the cylinders was broken.” They go on to say “it appears to be too long and it was forced onto the cylinder and broke from the stress.”
They are overnighting a part. We thought wd’d pass this on to the group.
Regards,
Derek