For all of you who like to do their own maintenance, let me relay a sad story. A fellow at the local airport bought one of the old Cessna 172's with the straight tail and no rear window. He had an alternator coupling failure after a couple of hours of flight time that resulted in mixing a lot of metal, from the alternator coupling that went throught the gears in the auxiliary case, mixing with the oil. After a major rebuild ($13,000) on the Continental six cylinder, that included new Millenium jugs and a new crankshaft, he proceeded to install it on the aircraft. Concious of the need to keep the inside of the engine clean while installing it, (no magneto, alternator or starter installed yet) he plugged all of the holes in the accessory case with rags. Several of the gawkers and helpers including myself advised him otherwise. Well during the propeller installation, he rotated the engine several turns and never missed the rag that got caught up in the gears in the accessory case and was pulled inside and out of sight. An A&P mechanic was called in to time the magnetos and the job was finished and the engine run for the first break in period at 1000 rpm. He allowed it to cool down and upon starting for the 1500 rpm break in period noticed that he had lost oil pressure after a minute or two. Upon shutdown and a look at the dipstick he found it covered with oil that was colored red from the fibers of the rag. It's hard not to say "I told you so" so I spent most of this day helping him get the engine ready for removal. He will have to have it torn down at the least and checked for damage caused by the loss of oil pressure and to clean the fibers from the rag out of the oil passages and internals of such things as the lifters. I was taught by my Father over 40 years ago to never allow a rag near a piece of machinery that was being assembled. If you want to keep it clean, spend the time to cut stiff cardboard covers and use masking tape. Number your covers and keep a log of them so when done, you can count them and know you have removed all of them. Also make them so large, they won't fall into the internals. Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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