Propellor Governor Failing?

Lowflynjack

Lowflynjack

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Jack Fleetwood
I was flying yesterday, at cruise, when suddenly my engine RPM surged. It went up to redline quickly and I had to pull the throttle back. Prop control would do nothing. In all the way, out all the way, no change. Then, it started working again and continued to work flawlessly for the rest of the flight.

I should have checked the oil pressure, but I didn't. I did check my oil when I landed and it was at 10 quarts, exactly where it was before I took off.

Could this mean my governor is failing? I would have thought a failure would be catastrophic. Could it be slowly failing? I've never had anything like this happen before.
 
I would take it as a warning and find the cause before flying again. When was the Governor overhauled last?
 
Clip4 said:
I would take it as a warning and find the cause before flying again. When was the Governor overhauled last?
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Not sure. I'll check when I get home today.
 
Lowflynjack said:
I've never had anything like this happen before.
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What prop and governor installed? Any idea on TT/TSO on these items? Any work recently performed on the engine, oil change, etc?
 
Bell206 said:
What prop and governor installed? Any idea on TT/TSO on these items? Any work recently performed on the engine, oil change, etc?
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Engine was just overhauled and installed when I bought it. Also got a new prop at that time. Something like 30 hours on both now. I changed the oil at 15 hours.
 
Sounds like exactly what happened to me in our C182K. It was the governor. Took awhile to actually fail, as in many months. It was very intermittent, then eventually failed on me during a family trip :(

Had to fly about 2 hours home with the prop full forward. Very low power setting, keeping the RPMs about 2,400 or so.
 
Cricket1 said:
Sounds like exactly what happened to me in our C182K. It was the governor. Took awhile to actually fail, as in many months. It was very intermittent, then eventually failed on me during a family trip :(

Had to fly about 2 hours home with the prop full forward. Very low power setting, keeping the RPMs about 2,400 or so.
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Thanks, this is what I suspected.
 
Lowflynjack said:
Something like 30 hours on both now.
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Is this on the 182B you just bought? What kind of warranty do you have on the engine OH and prop install? May want to inquire on this before you have someone look into this issue locally. Does your engine monitor record data? If so maybe see if you can download that flight.
 
Bell206 said:
Is this on the 182B you just bought? What kind of warranty do you have on the engine OH and prop install? May want to inquire on this before you have someone look into this issue locally. Does your engine monitor record data? If so maybe see if you can download that flight.
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Yes. I'm not sure what the warranty is off the top of my head, but I will look. I have The JPI EDM900, so it should record the data.
 
Lowflynjack said:
Engine was just overhauled and installed when I bought it. Also got a new prop at that time. Something like 30 hours on both now. I changed the oil at 15 hours.
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prop governor overhaul may or may not coincide with the engine overhaul or prop overhaul.
 
My airplane just finished Annual. I got to thinking about propeller tbo’s and found that my McCauley prop is fine. Then I started thinking about my Woodward prop governor. It’s worked fine, but I went back through my books and realized that the last write-up of a governor overhaul was in 1975. Should be done during prop or engine overhaul. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done, but a succession of Mechanics either failed or forgot to enter that info during subsequent engine and propeller overhauls and replacements. It was the only squawk that needed to be addressed. Turned out, It was original to the airplane. 1966. We replaced it with an overhauled McCauley unit. We live and learn.
 
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Cricket1 said:
Sounds like exactly what happened to me in our C182K. It was the governor. Had to fly about 2 hours home with the prop full forward. Very low power setting, keeping the RPMs about 2,400 or so.
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Is this the common result when the governor goes bad, or can it be more “catastrophic”? I was told by a friend with same year/model as me to check my governor as he just had to replace his. Seems like this failure was pretty benign if he kept flying for 2 hours. Should I preemptively overhaul or replace the governor or wait till it talks to me?
 
Lowflynjack said:
I was flying yesterday, at cruise, when suddenly my engine RPM surged. It went up to redline quickly and I had to pull the throttle back. Prop control would do nothing. In all the way, out all the way, no change. Then, it started working again and continued to work flawlessly for the rest of the flight.

I should have checked the oil pressure, but I didn't. I did check my oil when I landed and it was at 10 quarts, exactly where it was before I took off.

Could this mean my governor is failing? I would have thought a failure would be catastrophic. Could it be slowly failing? I've never had anything like this happen before.
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So what was the upshot of the troubleshooting? It's been six months. Be nice to know what you found.
 
Dan Thomas said:
So what was the upshot of the troubleshooting? It's been six months. Be nice to know what you found.
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Changed the oil and it stopped happening. My annual is due, so I'll have it pulled and checked/rebuilt now just to be safe.
 
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