Hey Guys,
I posted this in another aviation forum, but I got some of my research off this page when I decided to take my engine there for overhaul. Figured I'd pass the message along for the next guy to review...
Pictures limited to 10.
Here is my long awaited report on Jewell Aviation, Kennett MO. It is long, could be longer. Tried to be fair as possible.
The Engine Diagnosis:
Back in 2020, I started getting consistent ferrous metal returns in the oil filter of the IO360A1B6D in my 77 J Model. I was also seeing the alloys spike in oil analysis. The amount of metal never exceeded the Lycoming recommendations but it was clearly not getting any better. I spent a lot of time going back and forth on the options, diagnosing, boroscoping, reading, talking to numerous mechanics, sending particles into Avlab for AMS identification of the alloys, I spoke to Lycoming, etc. My engine only had about 500 hours since its’ last major (previous owner), so it was definitely going to be an early retirement. I finally settled on the assumption that there was about a 90% chance I had spalled lifter faces and my cam was getting chewed up.
The engine was otherwise running fine and I wasn’t dead certain about anything at the time, I just had an educated suspicion of what I thought it was. This gave me a bit of control in what my next move would be, since it was still flyable. I really envied the idea that, if I could fly my airplane to a shop that both does general MX and also does engine overhauls, I could simply make life easier on myself, fly the airplane to them, have them pull a couple of jugs. If something was discovered that was fixable, they could simply fix it OR if they discovered what I thought may be the case, the cam shaft was failing, they could promptly remove the engine and get to work on the overhaul. Mixed into the thinking was also, while the engine is off, they can perform an annual inspection on the airframe, and then once the engine was back on, finish it off. After all, the amount of TIME the airplane is down has a huge consequence on this large investment we all know as A/C ownership.
The search begins and the vetting process:
I talk to no less than 6 shops, both on the phone and on email. Most of them were only interested in performing an engine overhaul, as that is their bread and butter. I talked to all of the usual suspects. Between Mooneyspace and Beechtalk (quite a bit less albeit) this shop kept getting mentioned, Jewell Aviation. “They are the cheapest engine overhaulers in the business and they do work equal to anyone”. That’s not a direct quote, but that’s the message that’s being advertised. That’s quite an intriguing message. If they are so good, why are they so cheap? HOW are they so cheap? It sort of defied logic in the general business acumen I am accustomed to. And so, I started reaching out to some folks that had used them before or had familiararity with them. One thing that kept coming up is a differentiation between John Jewell Aircraft (Holly Springs, MS) and Jewell Aviation (Kennett, MO). If you say Jewell, many people associated whichever of the two they are familiar with, whether right or wrong. How many Jewells that rebuild engines could there be? There are two and they are related in no way. Alas, to this day, it remains a point of confusion. A rumor got started on Mooneyspace that Mike Busch sent the engines from his 310 to “Jewell” for overhaul. He may have used JOHN JEWELL AIRCRAFT, but I confirmed this point with Savvy that, Mike Busch did not use Jewell Aviation in Kennett MO for his engines. I didn’t bother to find out if it was the other Jewell or not, I simply confirmed that Mike Busch has never used Jewell Aviation (Kennett, MO). I did find out, however, that a couple of the Mooney shops in Texas had used them at least once. I never spoke to those shops directly, but I did talk to one or two of the clients involved. I spoke to a couple folks who’d used Jewell on the phone and via email. Nice guys, good information. Nobody I spoke to claimed they were the engine whisperers, but just that generally they had done a good job in their experience. I phoned up Jewell Aviation and talked to Dave Jewell. After a couple of attempts at a conversation, we did end up connecting and he gave me about 15 minutes of his time, which I appreciated, as he seemed quite busy. I asked the usual questions and it was clear he’d probably answered these same questions to the last 4 people that called. Talking about new tolerances, overhaul tolerances, this accessory, that accessory. It became clear that he did not really have a philosophy on the matter, and it seemed that everyone put too much stock in these questions. Basically, we’ll see what it looks like when we get in there and start making decisions. That sounded fair to me, this was my first overhaul I’ve ever been a part of and my engine only had 500 hours on it, the idea of taking it one step at a time seemed reasonable. We also discussed what was a pretty important point to me, A.) Can you inspect the cam before making a decision to pull the engine and if you do pull the engine B.) Can you do the reinstallation and C.) Can you perform an annual inspection while you have it all torn down. Yes, Yes, Yes, no problem that all sounds good.
The drop off:
Kennett, MO is in the middle of nowhere. I got on Mooneyspace to elicit the help of the field. I ended up flying my airplane 4 hours to MO to drop it off. A fellow Mooneyspacer agreed to meet me in Kennett and fly me from Kennett to Memphis is in C-Model so that I could hop on a commercial in Memphis, back home. What a cool community to be a part of that we can do stuff like that for each other. While I was there, Dave gave me a short tour of the shop. There were a lot of engines in there, and I walked past a cart that had a Mooney predator engine on it. WOW! That made me feel even better. Dave was courteous and I enjoyed the tour and his time. Customers can be distracting, I know, so I did appreciate him not grabbing the keys from me and saying see you later. I wrote out a typed list of things I wanted done, a list of things I wanted to talk about, and a list of things that – hey, if you have anyone sweeping shop floors when it’s time for pickup, we can maybe try to get to those things. It was pretty much, in order of importance: Diagnose Camshaft-> If Bad, pull engine for immediate overhaul-> Overhaul the engine/discuss correct steps. -> While down, perform the annual inspection and a couple of squawks.
Two weeks in:
I never want to be the over-bearing customer. Someone on here once mentioned something about “striving to be the best customer”. In other words, good MX folks are in short supply but in high demand. We as the customer have a responsibility to be a good customer if we intend to keep a good relationship. I like that theory and I have always followed it in business. It pays dividends down the road. Patience, paying on time, working with your people. They are just good habits that form good relationships. I think I waited about 2 weeks before I popped in to check on things…. “it’s me! How’s my camshaft looking!?” I’ve been thinking about it every hour of every day for two weeks, I finally break. I eventually get the bad news. I get pictures of the camshaft from a camera pointed into my crankcase with a circle around a clearly worn out cam lobe. Well, that’s disappointing but I am glad to know all my proactive work pointed me to a correct diagnosis and well, I wasn’t surprised.
The waiting game:
This is where things started becoming a bit frustrating. Again, I have a lot of respect for the business and particularly, the workload of a shop. They don’t really have time to answer 1,000 questions a day. But, there is a happy medium there and I tried to strike it. The updates I was getting were along the lines of “we are working on it”, “we are waiting on parts”, “haven’t done that part yet”. They were definitely answers like, don’t waste my time with your questions. I wasn’t particularly offended by it at the time, after all, I had a written list of what I wanted done, etc. I’m sure they’ll call if they have any questions. I was a bit concerned that, due to the specific requests of some of the items, I feared they would be overlooked or forgotten. After a couple of months had passed, I started getting delay notices. To their defense, a friggin ice storm hit the Memphis area. It shut down trucking, parts delivery, and the whole nine for at least a week. It was a nightmare. I’m sure it was a pain in the ass for anyone around. I begin to feel a renewed sense of care, as it seemed like we were right around the corner from getting everything situated. There were still quite a few unanswered questions about the inquiries I had made, and again, figured they would be addressed before it was all said and done. I would get a phone call here, an email there, confirming our plan for this, letting me know this or that was done. And then, I was surprised.
Cont'd...
I posted this in another aviation forum, but I got some of my research off this page when I decided to take my engine there for overhaul. Figured I'd pass the message along for the next guy to review...
Pictures limited to 10.
Here is my long awaited report on Jewell Aviation, Kennett MO. It is long, could be longer. Tried to be fair as possible.
The Engine Diagnosis:
Back in 2020, I started getting consistent ferrous metal returns in the oil filter of the IO360A1B6D in my 77 J Model. I was also seeing the alloys spike in oil analysis. The amount of metal never exceeded the Lycoming recommendations but it was clearly not getting any better. I spent a lot of time going back and forth on the options, diagnosing, boroscoping, reading, talking to numerous mechanics, sending particles into Avlab for AMS identification of the alloys, I spoke to Lycoming, etc. My engine only had about 500 hours since its’ last major (previous owner), so it was definitely going to be an early retirement. I finally settled on the assumption that there was about a 90% chance I had spalled lifter faces and my cam was getting chewed up.
The engine was otherwise running fine and I wasn’t dead certain about anything at the time, I just had an educated suspicion of what I thought it was. This gave me a bit of control in what my next move would be, since it was still flyable. I really envied the idea that, if I could fly my airplane to a shop that both does general MX and also does engine overhauls, I could simply make life easier on myself, fly the airplane to them, have them pull a couple of jugs. If something was discovered that was fixable, they could simply fix it OR if they discovered what I thought may be the case, the cam shaft was failing, they could promptly remove the engine and get to work on the overhaul. Mixed into the thinking was also, while the engine is off, they can perform an annual inspection on the airframe, and then once the engine was back on, finish it off. After all, the amount of TIME the airplane is down has a huge consequence on this large investment we all know as A/C ownership.
The search begins and the vetting process:
I talk to no less than 6 shops, both on the phone and on email. Most of them were only interested in performing an engine overhaul, as that is their bread and butter. I talked to all of the usual suspects. Between Mooneyspace and Beechtalk (quite a bit less albeit) this shop kept getting mentioned, Jewell Aviation. “They are the cheapest engine overhaulers in the business and they do work equal to anyone”. That’s not a direct quote, but that’s the message that’s being advertised. That’s quite an intriguing message. If they are so good, why are they so cheap? HOW are they so cheap? It sort of defied logic in the general business acumen I am accustomed to. And so, I started reaching out to some folks that had used them before or had familiararity with them. One thing that kept coming up is a differentiation between John Jewell Aircraft (Holly Springs, MS) and Jewell Aviation (Kennett, MO). If you say Jewell, many people associated whichever of the two they are familiar with, whether right or wrong. How many Jewells that rebuild engines could there be? There are two and they are related in no way. Alas, to this day, it remains a point of confusion. A rumor got started on Mooneyspace that Mike Busch sent the engines from his 310 to “Jewell” for overhaul. He may have used JOHN JEWELL AIRCRAFT, but I confirmed this point with Savvy that, Mike Busch did not use Jewell Aviation in Kennett MO for his engines. I didn’t bother to find out if it was the other Jewell or not, I simply confirmed that Mike Busch has never used Jewell Aviation (Kennett, MO). I did find out, however, that a couple of the Mooney shops in Texas had used them at least once. I never spoke to those shops directly, but I did talk to one or two of the clients involved. I spoke to a couple folks who’d used Jewell on the phone and via email. Nice guys, good information. Nobody I spoke to claimed they were the engine whisperers, but just that generally they had done a good job in their experience. I phoned up Jewell Aviation and talked to Dave Jewell. After a couple of attempts at a conversation, we did end up connecting and he gave me about 15 minutes of his time, which I appreciated, as he seemed quite busy. I asked the usual questions and it was clear he’d probably answered these same questions to the last 4 people that called. Talking about new tolerances, overhaul tolerances, this accessory, that accessory. It became clear that he did not really have a philosophy on the matter, and it seemed that everyone put too much stock in these questions. Basically, we’ll see what it looks like when we get in there and start making decisions. That sounded fair to me, this was my first overhaul I’ve ever been a part of and my engine only had 500 hours on it, the idea of taking it one step at a time seemed reasonable. We also discussed what was a pretty important point to me, A.) Can you inspect the cam before making a decision to pull the engine and if you do pull the engine B.) Can you do the reinstallation and C.) Can you perform an annual inspection while you have it all torn down. Yes, Yes, Yes, no problem that all sounds good.
The drop off:
Kennett, MO is in the middle of nowhere. I got on Mooneyspace to elicit the help of the field. I ended up flying my airplane 4 hours to MO to drop it off. A fellow Mooneyspacer agreed to meet me in Kennett and fly me from Kennett to Memphis is in C-Model so that I could hop on a commercial in Memphis, back home. What a cool community to be a part of that we can do stuff like that for each other. While I was there, Dave gave me a short tour of the shop. There were a lot of engines in there, and I walked past a cart that had a Mooney predator engine on it. WOW! That made me feel even better. Dave was courteous and I enjoyed the tour and his time. Customers can be distracting, I know, so I did appreciate him not grabbing the keys from me and saying see you later. I wrote out a typed list of things I wanted done, a list of things I wanted to talk about, and a list of things that – hey, if you have anyone sweeping shop floors when it’s time for pickup, we can maybe try to get to those things. It was pretty much, in order of importance: Diagnose Camshaft-> If Bad, pull engine for immediate overhaul-> Overhaul the engine/discuss correct steps. -> While down, perform the annual inspection and a couple of squawks.
Two weeks in:
I never want to be the over-bearing customer. Someone on here once mentioned something about “striving to be the best customer”. In other words, good MX folks are in short supply but in high demand. We as the customer have a responsibility to be a good customer if we intend to keep a good relationship. I like that theory and I have always followed it in business. It pays dividends down the road. Patience, paying on time, working with your people. They are just good habits that form good relationships. I think I waited about 2 weeks before I popped in to check on things…. “it’s me! How’s my camshaft looking!?” I’ve been thinking about it every hour of every day for two weeks, I finally break. I eventually get the bad news. I get pictures of the camshaft from a camera pointed into my crankcase with a circle around a clearly worn out cam lobe. Well, that’s disappointing but I am glad to know all my proactive work pointed me to a correct diagnosis and well, I wasn’t surprised.
The waiting game:
This is where things started becoming a bit frustrating. Again, I have a lot of respect for the business and particularly, the workload of a shop. They don’t really have time to answer 1,000 questions a day. But, there is a happy medium there and I tried to strike it. The updates I was getting were along the lines of “we are working on it”, “we are waiting on parts”, “haven’t done that part yet”. They were definitely answers like, don’t waste my time with your questions. I wasn’t particularly offended by it at the time, after all, I had a written list of what I wanted done, etc. I’m sure they’ll call if they have any questions. I was a bit concerned that, due to the specific requests of some of the items, I feared they would be overlooked or forgotten. After a couple of months had passed, I started getting delay notices. To their defense, a friggin ice storm hit the Memphis area. It shut down trucking, parts delivery, and the whole nine for at least a week. It was a nightmare. I’m sure it was a pain in the ass for anyone around. I begin to feel a renewed sense of care, as it seemed like we were right around the corner from getting everything situated. There were still quite a few unanswered questions about the inquiries I had made, and again, figured they would be addressed before it was all said and done. I would get a phone call here, an email there, confirming our plan for this, letting me know this or that was done. And then, I was surprised.
Cont'd...
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