So the last week of November I got word that my Dad was being hospitalized with lung cancer. So on December 1 my wife and I boarded my new 185 to fly from Texas to California to see my Dad. But not before I decided to install a new battery. We were planning on stopping overnight in Durango so I could show my wife the Grand Canyon from the air the following day. The battery had shown tendencies to crank a little slower on cold mornings.

So with a new battery installed we lifted off Saturday morning for a leisurely flight to Durango. First stop was for fuel at Hale County. 35 knot cross wind greeted us. We fueled, boarded, and when I turned the key nothing happened. I had the ramper watch the landing light while I attempted again. The landing light dimmed out. He brought out the tug, we plugged it into the plane and nothing. He then took out another cable with jumper clamps on one end, hooked it up and the plane started. A glance to the amp meter showed a full charge.

A few weeks earlier on a flight to a friend's place I spotted the amp meter at full discharge. The alternator circuit breaker had popped, but the breaker was in such poor condition that it wasn't obvious, and pushing it back in yielded no resistance nor click.

I guessed this had occurred again and off we went to continue the flight. I kept an eye on the amp meter the entire time and as I expected the needle gradually returned to center - the alternator was doing it's job.

The 35 knot crosswind was now a headwind, and it became 40 knots. I decided to drop into Taos and top off before crossing the Rockies into Durango. Once again after fueling the engine refused to crank. The ramper came out with his tug, we hooked up the cables...and nothing. We let the tug run for about 15 minutes to charge the battery if that was the problem.

I sent out a text to both my Stearman mechanic and Cessna mechanic to get their thoughts, which was the same as mine, a defective battery is the most likely problem, even though it was brand new.

There is no mechanic at Taos, and it's Saturday. We had to get on to California. A call to American Express got them working on tickets from Albuquerque to Fresno for the following morning and a hotel room for the night. The FBO went to work getting us a rental car from Taos to Albuquerque (3 hour drive). I went to work getting another new battery ordered and arranging for overnight shipment come Monday morning. (BTW, there is no such thing as overnight to Taos, even though you pay for it).

We pushed the 185 into the hangar, I removed the battery so they could put it on a slow charge, filled out the rental car paperwork, and started transferring our stuff from the plane to the car. A turboprop Baron landed and taxied to the fuel. A moment later the pilot came over and said "I hear you need to get to Albuquerque, we are headed there as soon as my boss arrives, you can fly with us".

A half hour later his boss arrived, along with his wife, both dressed to the nines for a Christmas party in Albuquerque. Lizard skin boots et all. There I stood in blue jeans, a t-shirt and tennis shoes. My wife was dressed nicer. Nice 20 minute flight, to the hotel, mediocre hotel dinner and bed. Early the next morning to the airport, TSA bullshit (really..I'm a 57 year old white guy...I'm pretty sure none of us have tried to blow up a plane...idiots), a gentleman in front of me, 90 if he was a day, in a wheel chair, they made him get up and into the scanner. It was all I could do to not go off on the TSA.

Albuquerque to Los Angeles to Fresno. By now my Dad was in hospice, tests revealed the cancer was everywhere. His 83rd birthday was Dec 3. He passed away the morning of December 4th, my wife's birthday. We remained a few more days to make arrangements cross as man T's and dot as many I's as possible. Another call to American Express for airfare from Fresno to Los Angeles to Santa Fe, rental car in Santa Fe to drive to Taos, hotel in Taos.

We did all that, but before going to the hotel we headed to the Taos airport to see if the battery had arrived, if it had I wanted to install it and see if she would crank. The sun was beginning to set as we arrived at the airport. The new battery was there, and the original new battery was fully charged.

Sorry about your dad. I'm getting old enough that 83 is way too young.

Sorry to hear about your father.

I'm sorry about your father, it's good you made it there at all costs though.

I don't think I'm letting the cat out of the bag when I say that this story probably has something to do with a fastener driven into a wire or battery. I dunno though....

Sorry about your Dad.......and your troubles so far on that trip.

As the sun goes down I install the new new battery. We push the 185 out of the hangar. I climb in and hit the starter. Nothing. Great.

We are in Taos.

No mechanics.

I can have one come in from Alamosa Colorado, or Santa Fe. But tomorrow is Friday, even if they figure it out we aren't going anywhere till the following week sometime. What is that going to cost?

We can keep the rental car, drive back to Santa Fe in the morning and catch a flight back to Texas. Of course I'll have to come back to Taos once the plane is fixed so I can fly it home. What is that going to cost?

What about hand propping? Is that even possible with a 185? A 300 horsepower engine. I've never hand propped an engine before. Seen it done once on a cub and it took 5 guys and about 30 minutes to get it started. Well that will be something to check out on YouTube at the hotel after dinner.

The FBO is closing for the night. I've got till the morning to figure out what I want to do, so it's time for dinner and then a good nights sleep. If you've never been to New Mexico you owe it to yourself to go to either Santa Fe or Taos. The food is fantastic. I've only found New Mexican cuisine in New Mexico and I love it.

I'm thinking if we have to be stranded someplace without a mechanic we couldn't do better then Taos. So where is the best dinner in Taos?

Orlando's. And should you have red chile, or green chile, or chipotle chile? Why not all three on blue corn enchiladas. That put everything into perspective. And of course a New Mexican Brownie for dessert.

I awoke the next morning with a plan, but first as long as we are here we should enjoy it to the fullest and that means the best breakfast in Taos, and you'll find that at the Taos Diner. After a fabulous breakfast it was off to the auto parts store.

Lets see, I need a set of wrenches, some pliers, a Philips screw driver, and a dead blow mallet. I'm convinced now that the problem is the starter, although it is also brand new, and I mean not rebuilt but brand new when I bought the plane just a few months earlier. With tools in hand we head for the airport.

When we arrive they already have the hangar door open letting the sun shine in on the 185 warming her up. I pull out the new new battery, and replace it with the old new battery that has been on a slow charge for over a week.

We push her out of the hangar. I take off the top cowl. With dead blow mallet in hand I give the starter a couple of solid whacks.

I reach into the cockpit and turn the key. And the prop turns. Okay, if it will just do it one more time we can get close to home, or maybe home with a good tailwind.

We spend the next half hour reloading the plane. Then pay my tab for the rental car - one day, one way, Santa Fe to Taos (about 1 1/2 hour drive). The tariff? $300. Yep.

Then a week of hangar rental $300. Cowl back on. Hit the key and she lights off. Taos is around 8,000 feet, the mountains right behind it are almost 14,000 feet. Put on the cannulas and we are off, max climb.

As we clear the mountains we pick up the wind, this time a tail wind. We settle in at 13,500 and our GPS ground speed is just over 200 mph. We make it back home with fuel to spare. Hangar the 185 and I reach in to try the ignition switch. Nothing. Yep, the starter. Deal with that in the morning.

The following day I pull the starter, but not until I tested voltages and drops across the entire circuit just tobe sure. Where to take it? My Stearman mechanic tells me of a starter overhaul shop in New Braunfalls.

I should of called first, but I didn't want to waist any time and my mechanic assured me they could fix it. So off I went on a one hour ten minute drive. Once there I hoisted the starter up into my hand like I was holding a shot put (or whatever that iron ball is called). Into the shop I walked.

The owner greeted me by shaking his head side to side. "We only work on big starters, like the ones on Stearmans".

Damn. Now I've got to make the drive back and still need to figure out who can look at it.

My right arm is tired of holding the starter like a shot put so I roll it over as I drop it in my left hand. Well look at that! One of the screws that retains the field coils (or whatever they are) against the inside of the starter case is gone. The one on the bottom of the starter when it's installed.

Peering into the missing screw hole I can see where the armature has been dragging. Another hour and ten minute drive finds me in the H.E.B. parking lot, meeting my Cessna mechanic who has brought with him a Lycoming core starter. I get out my hammer and hammer driver and extract one of the screws. Damn. It's coarse thread and I need fine.

Back to the airport to drop the starter back at the plane. A friend is in his hangar rebuilding his Russian radial powered Pitts that he crashed the year before. He has all kinds of stuff so we rummage through drawer after drawer and come up with a machine head screw with the correct thread. That will do to test if this is this only problem.

In the screw goes, in the starter goes, and in the key goes. And the prop goes. I take her for a test flight, land, shut her off. And I can start her back up. Bingo!

Next day I call Lycon, they grab a core starter, remove a screw, and ship it. Problem solved.

So let's see. One night hotel in Albuquerque. Last minute flight for two to Fresno. Last minute flight for two from Fresno to Santa Fe. One way rental car from Santa Fe to Taos. Hotel in Taos. Meals in all the places. New battery I don't need but can't return. Overnight shipping of said battery (I still don't know what that cost but I can imagine). A weeks hangar fee. What am I forgetting?

I figure that screw cost me about $3,000. Of course my friend (and my Stearman mechanic) had to remind me that I failed to account for the fuel I would have burned from Taos to Fresno and back had we been able to go the entire way in the 185. FINE. So it's only a $2,000 screw. Whatever.

Thanks for the condolences. It did work out for the best. The entire San Jaquin Valley (in which Fresno resides) was IFR the day we arrived. I had planned for that, intending to stay in Boulder City that evening and flying over the following day. Had I done that I would have missed the only time my Dad was awake.

Strange how things work out.

Great write up. Sorry for the loss of your father.

I merged your parts 1 and 2 into a single thread so they are kept together.

Barnstormer wrote:I had planned for that, intending to stay in Boulder City that evening and flying over the following day. Had I done that I would have missed the only time my Dad was awake.

Strange how things work out.

If all this had happened to me, this right here would make me wish for the exact same thing to happen if I were given the chance to do it again.

Missing screw =$3000
being with your dad = priceless

Never forget the old saw: "If you have time to spare, go by air."

Glad it worked out for you in the end.

MTV

Missing screw =$3000
being with your dad = priceless

x2!

lc

Time with your dad. That is the story. The rest is trivia. Merry Christmas....

Glad you made it out in time. That is what really mattered. Yes you can prop a 185, over the years I,ve propped several, including mine, that I've owned 36 years. A lot eaiser cold and with a two blade, but doable on a 3 blade. I lost the starter coming out of Mexico in 1991. We were in a group of 6 185's and stopped in Reyensa, MX to clear customs, I hit the starter and no go. We took turns propping the hot engine and after about wearing ourselves out it lit. We all jumped in and we all taxed out to take off just as the sun set. Tower called and said taxi back as it was to late to fly (after sundown). We decided to hell with them and all took off for McAllen and customs. Called McAllen and they said the airport was closed do to a gas pipeline that blew up earlier that day. They said we had to fly down to Brownsville to clear customs, by this time it was pitch dark. We headed down to Brownsville in a real lose formation, ever try to keep track of 6 planes flying together on a dark night. Enroute one of the guys said he heard a loud bang in the engine or firewall and was going to try and head to the nearest airport. We ask if everything looked ok and if it was flying ok and it was he said. We told him to hang in with us and we flew on to Brownsville, After landing we found a cowl flap had departed his 185 and made the noise. Earlier that day while flying out of Mexico another of the 185's developed a miss flying from Isla Mujeres to Minatitlan, a planned fuel stop. We pulled the upper cowl and found a broken fuel injector line, now what. We're damn glad he didn't have a fire with all that fuel spraying everwhere. Several of us including one of us that was good with spanish took a cab into town and found a silversmith. He was able to silver solder the injecter line for us. What a long day coming out of the Yucatan with all those problems. Neeedless to say we all spent a few hours in the hotel bar that night in Brownsville. We hand propped my 185 the next morning and I flew up to the now open McAllen for a starter. Ron

Ron,

While in Taos on the return trip the FBO owner told me that when he lived in Alaska he hand propped his Skywagon all the time in the winter because he'd take the battery out and leave it out.

Yesterday during day 2 of installing a JPI 700 and a Tanis heater, my mechanic and I were discussing hand propping the 185. He showed me where to set the prop (just past TDC and before the mag "click" and said the prop really doesn't have to be swung very far.

I do have a two blade, and when cranked cold it starts during the first revolution of the blade so I'd think like you said it would be easy to start cold. I do intend to try it in the near future so I have the confidence in the future should I need to. Can't imagine hand propping it hot.

Great short story. Excellent creativity with the silversmith. Ah Mexico, the only country I've ever been hunting in where I was intentionally shot at, or seen a UFO. But that's another story.

I watch the Food Network show Diners, Drive ins & Dives when ever I get a chance. He's been to Santa Fe and some other places in NM. The food looks amzing just what you see on TV. Too bad Taos and Santa Fe isn't along my normal routes.

When propping make sure the plane is tied down well if no one qualified is in the pilots seat. Last year at our airport a 182 driver pulled his plane out of his hanger, turned it parallel to taxi between hangers and propped it. No one in plane and not tied down. When it fired he had the throttle way to far in and he tried to stop it. He damn near got in the prop and grabbed the wing strut and the plane turned left, caught the left wing on the hanger door and that made it start chewing it's way thru the next hanger steel door. The only thing that stopped it from going on in and chewing up a 185 (not mine) was the nose gear strut hung up on the heavy support beam along the bottom of the sliding door. Bent the fire wall back also. He was also uninsured. Plane back flying after lot's of $$$.
Ron

skywagon guy wrote:Glad you made it out in time. That is what really mattered. Yes you can prop a 185, over the years I,ve propped several, including mine, that I've owned 36 years. A lot eaiser cold and with a two blade, but doable on a 3 blade. I lost the starter coming out of Mexico in 1991. We were in a group of 6 185's and stopped in Reyensa, MX to clear customs, I hit the starter and no go. We took turns propping the hot engine and after about wearing ourselves out it lit. We all jumped in and we all taxed out to take off just as the sun set. Tower called and said taxi back as it was to late to fly (after sundown). We decided to hell with them and all took off for McAllen and customs. Called McAllen and they said the airport was closed do to a gas pipeline that blew up earlier that day. They said we had to fly down to Brownsville to clear customs, by this time it was pitch dark. We headed down to Brownsville in a real lose formation, ever try to keep track of 6 planes flying together on a dark night. Enroute one of the guys said he heard a loud bang in the engine or firewall and was going to try and head to the nearest airport. We ask if everything looked ok and if it was flying ok and it was he said. We told him to hang in with us and we flew on to Brownsville, After landing we found a cowl flap had departed his 185 and made the noise. Earlier that day while flying out of Mexico another of the 185's developed a miss flying from Isla Mujeres to Minatitlan, a planned fuel stop. We pulled the upper cowl and found a broken fuel injector line, now what. We're damn glad he didn't have a fire with all that fuel spraying everwhere. Several of us including one of us that was good with spanish took a cab into town and found a silversmith. He was able to silver solder the injecter line for us. What a long day coming out of the Yucatan with all those problems. Neeedless to say we all spent a few hours in the hotel bar that night in Brownsville. We hand propped my 185 the next morning and I flew up to the now open McAllen for a starter. Ron

Holy cow I remember that trip! As I was reading this I was thinking, this sounds a lot like a story I witnessed, then I saw you sign it "Ron".

Tony L

Hi Tony, bet you do remember it. Sure had a lot of goodtimes flying around with your Dad over the years. I'll never forget you in that bassinet in the tent down in BAJA, think it was 1981. How is the Comm flying stuff going?
Ron