I had an issue with my I0-520 in my 185. on shutdown it would try and turn backwards a bit which is normal when it comes up on the last compression stroke and can't quite make it. The issue was because the spring doesn't necessarily release and with the POS Irska starter being geared and not allow it to turn backwards would come to an abrupt stop. I called Niagra who overhauls starter adapters and they HIGHLY recommended getting rid of that starter and get the energizer boat anchor which I did. The tech said they have seen a lot of broken springs with the Irska starters. He spend almost a half an hour on the phone with me telling me about all the issues they are seeing.

Tom

a3holerman wrote:I had an issue with my I0-520 in my 185. on shutdown it would try and turn backwards a bit which is normal when it comes up on the last compression stroke and can't quite make it. The issue was because the sprig doesn't necessarily release and with the POS Irska starter being geared and not allow it to turn backwards would come to an abrupt stop. I called Niagra who overhauls starter adapters and they HIGHLY recommended getting rid of that starter and get the energizer boat anchor which I did. The tech said they have seen a lot of broken springs with the Irska starters. He spend almost a half an hour on the phone with me telling me about all the issues they are seeing.

Tom

I understand its not only Iskra, but all permanent magnet starters. An old style 6502 eliminated the same problem/situation in my 550. TCM said it was ok and normal, when I installed the engine. I feel a lot better without the situation on every shutdown.

I've fixed a couple of broken adapters now, and have done lots of thinking on this. FWIW... I'm building a hopped up 520 for my 180 now, and have decided to go back to an Energizer. This will be mated to an old style adapter.

You guys are talking about the Continental Energizer not the Hartzell Energizer, right? I need to buy a starter but can't decide what to buy.

Yep. Cont. Heavier for sure, but bomb proof.

I would give the tempest powerflite starters a look too. Ball bearing design with low internal friction. I am pretty happy with mine, installed it 5 months ago

Bigrenna wrote:Yep. Cont. Heavier for sure, but bomb proof.

Not really,

I bought a new one last year and after about 50hrs it started making a terrible noise during cranking. Bad bearing but they have a 3 year warrantee so had it replaced.

For how easy it is to pull these starters, probably not a bad idea to pull them at least at annual and give them a feel by hand for rotation. Besides making them noisy and hard to turn over, bad bearings will grind your spring into the shaft on an old style adaptor.

Bigrenna wrote:I've fixed a couple of broken adapters now, and have done lots of thinking on this. FWIW... I'm building a hopped up 520 for my 180 now, and have decided to go back to an Energizer. This will be mated to an old style adapter.

What are you hopping up? Anything outside the STC is experimental.....................

Tom wrote:What are you hopping up? Anything outside the STC is experimental.....................

You should put that in your signature.

Zzz wrote:

Tom wrote:What are you hopping up? Anything outside the STC is experimental.....................

You should put that in your signature.

Ha!

Actually, anything outside the STC is illegal unless approved by other means, but I think we all know that here........

I’ve never had a start problem....until today.

Cessna 185 with IO-520D. Hartzel Energizer starter. New style adapter. Hawker SBS J-16 12V battery. 3-blade MT Prop.

The 5 year old battery was getting tired (recent starts seemed more difficult for the starter to pull the prop through the first compression) so I bought a replacement battery at the trade show. Charged it up and there it sits on the floor near the plane awaiting install.

Today I decided to fly the plane. New battery still on the hangar floor. Keyed the starter and the prop slowly arrempted to move through the first compression and stopped. Then I think it kicked back, but it didn’t rotate backwards beyond the original starting point. It did make a slight clunk sound when the prop stopped.

I the keyed the starter again and .... absolutely nothing. No sound or whirring or spinning or anything. It was as if the starter was disconnected from the key. Electrical disconnect.

Any thoughts? Haven’t pulled the cowl yet and just put the plane back in the hangar.

Squash wrote:I the keyed the starter again and .... absolutely nothing. No sound or whirring or spinning or anything. It was as if the starter was disconnected from the key. Electrical disconnect.

Sounds like a solenoid Greg. I carry a spare with me in the tool bag for just this reason.

Both good ideas. I will report back once the investigation is complete. Thanks!

That sucks Ggg. I guess that's one reason we have more then one plane.

Barnstormer wrote:That sucks Ggg. I guess that's one reason we have more then one plane.

We are truly fortunate.

It turns out that the day my prop stopped spinning on start, I wasn’t able to hear the motor turning maybe because the wind was blowing or because my brain was overloaded and I didn’t have the bandwidth to process all sensory inputs. The starter motor does indeed turn when keying the starter and therefore the solenoid is working as well. The adapter is not connecting starter motor to engine.

We haven’t pulled the current adapter yet (new style) and will wait for the classic adapter and spacer to arrive from Niagra before nudging the engine to do the swap. I’m guessing we will find a broken spring.

My mechanic did examine the mags and found an inoperative impulse coupler on the right mag. This supports Bigrenna’s assertion that these kickback events are due to some sort of timing problem.

Having had time to think about this situation for a while, my weak prop rotation through the first compression probably wasn’t due to a weak battery but rather from a slipping adapter spring that was partially injured during a prior kickback event that didn’t completely break the spring. I vaguely recall that this happened last summer sometime.

Impulse couplers are quite ingenious solutions to the problem of a weak spark created at the wrong time at slow engine rotations during the start sequence. However, they can fail for many reasons and when they do, a start may not be possible, or worse, a kickback.

Bigrenna has turned me on to the shower of sparks mags and I’m researching now.

Thanks for the info and continue with the final fix.

Follow up:

The plane is operational again. I had ordered a classic style adapter from Niagra and it was installed today.

My mechanic talked me out of the shower of sparks.

Installed my new battery. (The old battery is just fine, but I had already purchased the new one when I thought my slow start was from the battery. In reality, it was likely a deformed spring in the new style adapter from a prior kickback that resulted in slipping).

I got a classic style starter adapter,and after annual the timing was a bit advanced (not deliberate) and I got 2 kickbacks when trying to start.
Then it started on the next attempt, then continue to start, we fixed the timing , added shower of sparks and has been good since then.

A couple of months ago did the Pponk conversion and I asked I wanted to see the spring from the starter adapter, it had no kinks or nothing, didnt make metal, nothing.

So this can be proof that the classic starter adapter can take a kickback.

They have had some other problems like not disengaging the starter motor and fried the starter, and this is why Continental made the new style adapter, its more unlikely to happen, but nothing is perfect.

Was sittin around with a group of buddies recently, prolly around 7-8000 hours combined C-180/185 time among us, and asked how many times anyone had experienced a kickback at start. None of us had ever experienced a kickback...except with MT props. No, there's definitely not a trend here [emoji23]