Also posted this at CPA.
I know there are many 182 owners in this forums and some owns the MT prop.
Starter now moves the MT prop quick , this morning I was starting the engine and didnt start got a kickback and broke the starter adaptor.

Maybe the MT prop is too light and the starter adaptor goes too fast and jumps ? Or a small magneto miss timing?
Seems to be this happens a lot with Continental's , the kickback happens much easier with the MT prop because of its lightweight.
with not enough mass to carry the piston thru top center and if impulse causes the mag to fire before piston has passed thru top center it can cause a kick back

Engine is a TCM reman with 450 hrs

Trying to know what causes this and try to avoid it become a recurrent issue.
From what I have read so far .Seems to be, the faster the cranking speed the less the lag angle should be.
With the MT prop the motor goes faster than before
A solution is timing has to be set at less degrees than it is.

How much power will I loose retarding the timing a couple of degrees?

Any other ideas are welcomed.
I have also been recommended changing to another type of magnetos or to the old style starter adaptor and starter.
Honestly there should be a solution not involving more changes and changes.
So far Im inclined with the timing retarding theory.

By the way Im loving the MT prop , but not so much the Continental starter adaptor.

What make of mags?

Some of the magnetos (depending on make) you can set the retard of the impulse coupling, this will retard the timing for starting and have factory run timing.

I've had the impulse coupling flyweights stick so the the respective mag was advanced at 26 BTDC. I finally figured it out by pulling the prop through and I could only hear one coupling instead of two.

What kind of starter do you have?

That adapter is pretty pricey Too bad.

Agree, check that both impule couplings are working properly before running it with the new adapter installed, You don't want to have this happen again. Retarding the mag timing will defiantly decrease performance.

Bendix type magnetos, the smaller starter , the motor was reman in 2007 so I think is the newer style.

Some of the lightweight starters are known to have kickback issues and will damage starter adapters on the larger Continentals. I believe the Iskra starters and the early Skytecs both suffered from this problem. The consensus seems to be that the original heavyweight starters are the way to go, although most of the updated lightweight varieties claim to not suffer from the kickback issue.

Here's a good Service Letter from Hartzell which describes the issue:

http://www.hartzellenginetech.com/service_pdf/SL_038_M-Drive_TechDiscuss.pdf

Hope this helps.

JC

Kickback is caused by a backfire in the engine's induction. There are generally two possible causes:

1) improper magneto timing, which may be related to the mags being improperly timed by the mechanic. Magnetos can slip timing. There is external timing and internal timing on magnetos as well, and that right there exceeds my knowledge of that subject....nevertheless, it's imperative that the mags be timed properly.

2) Operator error can also cause kickback. Too much prime, improper use of the throttle on start, etc can place lots of fuel in the induction and setup the backfire scenario.

Finally, lightweight starters are light because.....wait for it......they have less material in them.....as in steel in that starter drive. So, the starter drives on these lightweight units are somewhat more fragile and less tolerant of kickbacks.

I'd have the mag timing looked at by a very knowledgeable mechanic.

I have little experience with the lightweight starters and Continentals, but this is a fairly common issue, and it seems like a lot of folks have gone back to the older heavy duty starters.

On Lycoming engines, you generally get to replace the entire starter when this happens.

Good luck.

MTV

A guy with a Lancair for some reason had a unique right angle drive starter. He devised a setup with something similar to these:

http://www.mcmaster.com/#clutch-bearings/=hcg2a1

to avoid broken gears after two incidents. I wonder if this would be a good STC for TCM's?

What did it break in the starter adapter.
Happened once with my IO-520 and it just snapped the spring.
Pain in the butt, but wasn't to expensive to fix.

As for MT Propellers, I'll stick with my McCauley.
Old school, ya know!

Mark

The spring is what broke

My spring was a clean break so I wasn't too worried about contaminating the engine.
Hopefully you can just replace the spring.
Watch your oil pressure after getting it back running to make sure a fragment of the spring doesn't jamb the oil pressure regulator open. That's if your break wasn't a clean one.
Good luck.
And be happy you have a Continental

Mark
'80 A185F

The A&P wants to put the spring back together and re assembly everything and he says Continental allows 2 degrees less in the timing so he plans to do that to avoid it happen again.

Im not too comfortable with this.

motoadve wrote:The A&P wants to put the spring back together and re assembly everything and he says Continental allows 2 degrees less in the timing so he plans to do that to avoid it happen again.

Im not too comfortable with this.

What kind of starter are you using Dave?

The newer smaller Continental

You can re-time, under prime, and try standing on your left leg with your right hand pointing at the moon while turning your engine over.... Sooner or later you will experience a kick back... again...

Using the starter that is known to be intolerant of that situation wouldn't make much sense to me?

Rob wrote:You can re-time, under prime, and try standing on your left leg with your right hand pointing at the moon while turning your engine over.... Sooner or later you will experience a kick back... again...

Using the starter that is known to be intolerant of that situation wouldn't make much sense to me?

Is that an intolerant starter Rob (not being funny just don't know)? I know my engine builder didn't like the sound of my SkyTeck starter and belly moaned that it would take out my starter drive, but 200 hours it hasn't yet. It sounds significantly different than the old TCM boat anchor starter but I'm so used to it I forget what that TCM sounded like. No kickbacks yet

Any more updates on this motoadve? Mine just busted after about 10hrs on the new MT prop, although to be fair I think mine had been on the way out for a while rather than a kickback issue from the light prop. I thought the "prop hanging" slow starts were the battery on the way out, so replaced the battery and on second start busted the adaptor spring. In hindsight it was the starter adapter all along and I should have got onto it before it busted. Hoping it's just the spring and its still in one piece in the adaptor as the engine didn't start.

When mine broke, the spring broke clean and we just replaced the spring $150 vs $700.
So check if its the spring.Usually that is what breaks.
Niagara sells them.

I had the ISKRA starter lightweight.

I bought the old heavy starter and the magnetos had the impulse couplings retarded.
I think is good now (500 or so hrs later)