New to the board, contemplating a "new" '52 170B The biggest issue I see is the engine was MOH 70 hours and 5 years ago. TT approx 2100. It looks and appears to run fine and I've had a mechanic look at it who says he believes it's fine but that I may see a little less life on the top end overhaul down the road.
I've got experience with the Cont 220 but none with the O-300, what do you guys think?? Would you have it borescoped?
Thanks! Looking forward to a lot of fun 170 flyin'
what kind of cylinders does it have? if they are steel then it wouldn't hurt to look in the cylinders, but if chrome or cerminil then you won't see much.
you should be more worried about the cam and lifters, that's where any rust will hurt things down the road.
frequent oil changes for the first while you operate it would be a good tactic.
'56 "C170 and change"
'52 Packard 200
'68 Arctic Cat P12 Panther
"He's a menace to everything in the air. Yes, birds too." - Airplane
You need to look at how those 70 hours where accumulated over the 5 years.
If the engine was used a bit more that 1 hour each month spread even over the 5 years then I would think it all right. A few idle months wouldn't hurt more than likely in this time frame either.
On the other hand if the engine had most of the ours put on in the first several months of the period then sat idle for say the next four years you could have a problem. Unfortunately bore scoping will only give you a look in the cylinders and not view the cam. The only way to get a look at the cam is to pull a cylinder.
There is nothing mysterious about the 0-300. It's a great reliable engine. But no engine will withstand inactivity with the rust that can form.
CAUTION - My forum posts may be worth what you paid for them!
Bruce Fenstermacher, Past President, TIC170A
Email: brucefenster at gmail.com
I agree with Bruce. I would pull at least one cylinder and have a look at the camshaft and followers. It would also give you a good look at the cylinder to see how they look. If compression, oil pressure and temp are good, mags check and you are getting rated RPM on a static run, you should be good to go. (I'm also assuming you are doing all the other maintenance items that are done as part of an annual)
Yep, thought that pulling a cylinder would come up. I'll talk to the IA there at the field about doing it.
The engine was mostly flown just after the rebuild and for the last few years, the IA has been "keeping" it up and annualing it. He claims to have run it at least once a month (owner is a good friend who succumbed to Alzheimers a while back) and it appears that he has. No outstanding gripes/idicators.
It was just annualed, all cylinders measured 77-78/80, starts easily, idles smoothly, good oil pressure, no smoke, no unusual noises, etc.
You'll have to go with your gut here. You may have found a good one.
But I'd recommend you have someone else look over the plane. Not that it's not a good one. But sometimes friends of the owner have a hard time seeing anything wrong when it's staring them in the face.
CAUTION - My forum posts may be worth what you paid for them!
Bruce Fenstermacher, Past President, TIC170A
Email: brucefenster at gmail.com
Yep, the gut part is why I'm asking the experts. I (my gut) think it'll be fine but then again, I'm a 150/7ECA/Stearman guy and have no idea about the O-300 and 170!
I'm thinking along the lines of you guys. I did have a guy with 700+ 170 hours go look at it, run it up, taxi etc and he didn't find anything alarming. However, he didn't fly it since there is currently no insurance.
I'm going to call an A&P friend of his who lives about an hour away from the plane and see if he'll go take a look.
Going on three years ago now, I bought my Swift, which had an O-300 that had been very expertly majored nearly 10 years before, but with only about 50 hours on it. It had been flown very little in the years just before I bought it. It's easily the best O-300 I've ever flown with, but I did experience some problems early on. There was a bad mag drop initially, which turned out to be a bad Slick ignition harness. I replaced that, and haven't had any ignition problems since. I had to replace both the generator and the voltage regulator before the electrical system started behaving itself. (The engine-driven fuel pump sprung a leak, which is a normal thing for a new pump and easily fixed by tightening the screws around the diaphram, but of course that wouldn't concern a 170 owner.)
On the airframe there was a fuel leak because a clamp needed tightening, and a hydraulic leak in a gear retraction cylinder that had been rebuilt only a few hours before.
My point is that if an airplane hasn't been flown much in a while, you can expect some "teething" problems to appear when you start to use it regularly, but once you work through them, you should have a reliable airplane or engine. Somebody (maybe on this forum?) said that the only thing worse for an airplane than flying it is not flying it.
Happy flying!
John
John Renwick
Minneapolis, MN
Former owner, '55 C-170B, N4401B
'42 J-3 Cub, N62088
'50 Swift GC-1B, N2431B, Oshkosh 2009 Outstanding Swift Award, 2016 Best Continuously Maintained Swift
Yep, the gut part is why I'm asking the experts. I (my gut) think it'll be fine but then again, I'm a 150/7ECA/Stearman guy and have no idea about the O-300 and 170!
Thanks!
Chris
If you're a 150 guy, then you know a good bit about the O-300. It's the same as the O-200 from the connecting rods on out, just two more of them.
Like the others, I think the timng of those 70 hours over the years makes the biggest difference. If the airplane was actually FLOWN about an hour a month over that period, then you are probably OK. If it was just started occasionally "to stir up the oil" then all that was accomplished was to increase the amount of moisture in the crankcase, and you have more to worry about. If that's the case, pull a cylinder and get a sample look at the cam and lifters. If they don't have visible rust or pits, you're probably good to go. As always this advice is worth what you paid for it.
Nothing is as good for a airplane as flying it!
This airplane is fifty-five (55) years old and has flown only 2100 hours?
Thats about three hours a month. It could be a cream puff or a real pig.
If the price is reasonable, buy it and fix it up to your own specs. You can hardly go wrong on a 2100 hour '52 model. They're, without a doubt, the best flying airplane Cessna ever built. You'll love it!
I'm giving you this information free, but , believe me, it's worth plenty!
If there's a problem in the engine, it's probably too late now to worry about it now, it will show up in the screen. Just my opinion, if you do pull a cylinder pull #1 or #6 as the nose high attitude of the engine will diminish the oil coverage and more than likely corrosion may exist there.
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The biggest issue I see is the engine was MOH 70 hours and 5 years ago. TT approx 2100. It looks and appears to run fine and I've had a mechanic look at it who says he believes it's fine but that I may see a little less life on the top end overhaul down the road. 
