colin_eyres

HI all, i'm having a problem with our trusty Brauniger,one of the buttons is failing to register a input, so my questions are 1 has anybody removed the display front to clean the contacts underneath and were you successful? 2 is there brauniger repair facilities in the US as there dont seem to be any in the UK 3 roughly how much would such a repair and recalibration of the unit cost? 4 is going for Dynon option to provide a good reliable trouble free display the best idea? many thanks in anticipation. cheers Colin

Hi Roger,as mentioned in my last post the seals were obtained from Airmasters in the UK. I dont know how long he'd had the seals in his stock but he implied that he couldn't supply a new or exchange unit for me.inluding the post it was just under £20 which I thought was'nt too bad for OEM parts. it was a 2 man job today to get the master cylinder out from the centre tunnel and we were surprised that 3 of the 4 seals were ok. the smallest one that was attached to the end of the piston rod was a different story. the aircraft has now had the check valve, parking brake valve and finally the re furb of the master cylinder.both the check valve and the master cylinder seals have suffered major damage .but there again the aircraft has approx 2400hours on the airframe with the braking problems starting about 50 hours prior,and this is the first time we've had any problems with the operation of the brakes fingers are now crossed!!

Hi guys,just for your infomation I've managed to track down a seal service kit for the Marc Ingregno master cylinder from Airmasters in the UK. and I'm going to attempt the seal change over this coming saturday and I will keep you up to speed on how I fare. many thanks for everybodys input on the matter and if this kit dosn't solve my problem then I will certainly look into changing over to Matco. if anybody else is interested in the size of the Marc Ingregno seals they are: 17 x 14 x 1.8 14.5 x 11 x1.8 12.5 x 9 1.8 8 x 4.5 x1.8

Hi, has anybody got any experience of replacing the master cylinder seals on a 2007 CTSW? could anybody supply a exploded view of the internals of the master cylinder, also do you think there would be any exchange units available? if not how much would a new unit be? would there be a seals service kit available? if possible it would be helpful if the dimensions of the seals could also be given as I can imagine in the UK that to obtain a new/exchange will be impossible and maybe a second hand unit off a scrapped aircraft could be nearly as bad as our leaking unit.finally would the seals have to be made of a special material to resist the effects of the mineral oil used on the braking system.many thanks in anticipation guys

Hi guys for all your advice.i decided to rig up some devices based on Rogers post, but as we had already changed the park brake valve firstly it was time to have a look at the check valve this time around.on removal and close inspection of the valve seating it was discovered that there was some contamination visible stopping the valve seating properly.we duly fitted a new check valve and almost straight away we noticed a improvement even though there was masses of air in the system still. with perseverance we managed to purge the air from the system and all is now fine. on getting home to tear down the check valve to see what the contamination was I found it was actualy part of the O ring that had some how got stuck in the seating and was the cause of our problems.this was the original 2007 check valve and w'ed never had a problem with it. thanks again

Hi guys, I'd like to thank you for help so far on this topic, firstly I'd like to respond to Anticept and Roger Lee about the colour of the brake fluid.I've taken advice from one of the UK's top maitainance guys and he assures me that the green coloured fluid is correct for UK specced aircraft.when pressed further about what type of fluid it was he told me that it was a mineral oil based fluid and could be bought under the name of LHM.anyway we finally got to the aircraft yesturday to have a good look around. the first thing that was noticed was the master cylinder reservoir was empty and the pipe leading off from it was half empty also.and in the centre tunnel there was a very small hardly moist oily residue, the calipers and nipples were bone dry. we had decided prior to arriving at the aircraft that we would fit a new parking brake valve and what with finding the oily residue we proceeded to fit the new valve.now there was 2 off us there and both of us had experience with bleeding motorbike and car braking systems. firstly when trying to add fluid to the reservoir using a funnel it was noted that the fluid would just sit in the funnel and not replenish the master cylinder. i decided to open the caliper bleed nipple a crack whist my buddy operated the brake lever. we got a few bubbles out of the system that way on each wheel but we were not getting enough fluid into the brake lines that way. we tried ever so many times but no joy.I even adapted a foot pump to gently add pressure to force the fluid out of the reservoir and down the pipes still no joy.so in a nutshell we have a mega amount of air in the system and what ever method we use to evacuate it it just refuses to budge and the air bubble just moves back and forth as you operate the lever.is back filling the lines a good idea? so what do you guys do to change the brake fluid and remove the air bubbles TIA

hi, where would the check valve be located and what is its function? my money is on the parking brake valve as the brake lever feel and brake efficiancy is perfect in normal taxiing/power runup situations.

hi, is there anyone out there who has had a similar problem to me and what was done to diagnose the problem and what was the fix? the aircraft in question is a 2007 ctsw which has been kept in pretty good condition for a syndicate aircraft with some 2300hrs on the airframe but only 250hrs on the replacement new engine.recently the aircraft was in for some carbon fibre work on one of the wings and the guys who did it did a fantastic job.now due to covid etc the aircraft was not flyable for more than 2 months and when the aircraft came back everything was fine and the aircraft has about 10hrs more flying time added due to other members using it.yesturday it was my turn to fly and i rolled her out of the hangar onto the apron to do my checks.I tried setting the parking brakes and noticed the feel of the lever didnt feel right and the travel of the lever seem to be reduced in length also.when checking whether the parking brake was holding i found that out that it wasnt. I then tried to see if the brakes would hold just using the brake lever in the normal fashion and found that the lever action was fine and yes the brakes held just like the should.when i was ready to fly at normal tickover the aircraft was constantly creeping foward and on re applying the parking brake several times it appeared to hold for about three seconds then started creeping again. when i was ready for a power check I just held the brakes by hand and the aircaft held fast at full power.so my conclusions are that brake pads are ok,it dosnt feel if there's any air entered the system?, due to the limited reservoir capacity and the amount of brake usage then there's not going to be a leak in the system either.the braking system itself has never shown any signs of leakage or any other problems ever.i removed the centre cover to expose the parking brake mechanism but there was nothing obvious. any thoughts on the matter guys?

Hi, does anybody know exactly what the internal structure of the wing is? 1 is there a fuel tank inside each wing, or is the whole wing the tank? 2 how many baffles inside the wing and locations of them? 3 are the baffles a structural part of the wing or do they simply reduce the sloshing about and also reduce the movement of fuel from port to starboard wings or vice versa

Many thanks for the information guys. Keep up the good work

Do you know wether sealing the tanks is a 100% effective fix or are there a percentage of failures resulting in a wing becoming unfixable/scrap.

we had the wings off about 18 month ago and replaced the hoses and everything was ok, but a few months later one of our syndicate members has just reminded me there was a very small amount of staining found on our annual inspection and he removed it and refilled the area with 2pac and that seamed to take a long time to harden.could you tell me are there are tanks in the wings or is the whole wing is the tank? and does the wing have to come off to apply a sealing compound. would you think if the whole wing is the tank and there is a leak do you think that it will affect the carbon fibre and spread further?

Hi, I'm looking for some first hand experience and advice from you guys. has anyone encountered a fuel leak coming through the leading edge of the carbon fibre around the stall edging. I'm in a syndicate aircraft and recently we needed to fill in some paint damage with some two pack filler, after a few weeks it was noted that the 2 pack had not hardened and was turning a straw colour and there was a small tail about a inch long of this colour directly underneath it. some members of the group are convinced its a fuel leak and I agree the colouring is similar, but what I cant get my head around is that the tail is not increasing in size or feel damp which would normally be the case. we have been quoted £1700 by a pro to sort it but I would be upset if the job was done and found not to be a leak after all. any thoughts on proving /disproving that its a leak?

Hi Marco, well it certainly sounds like a voltage issue now.if the dynon figure is true it sounds way low to me.you should have at least 12.6 volts with the engine running.I suggest you check the battery with a external volt meter after she's stood for say a day.then start her up,take note of the volts at idle,compare with the dynon for reference purposes.run the engine up the volts should rise,again compare with the dynon.now find the volts needed to operate the flaps.repeat the exercise,this time with a jump start/battery booster connected to the positive side of the battery and the exhaust pipe as the negative[watch out,it gets a bit warm if the neg lead gets near the downpipe] see what the volts are again and if the flaps now work as normal at idle.you could of course try all of this without starting the engine and go on from there.hope this helps with the diagnosis.

Hi Marco, sorry to hear your still having flap problems.can you clarify a point for me.you say on idle the flaps wont move from 0 to -12 untill you rev the engine.Ok,if you get them to move to say 15 degrees then throttle back to idle.do you then have control of the other flap positions at idle? if so it seems unlikely that it is a voltage problem.on our aircraft sometime before our problem with the flaps,we had a battery with insufficient oomph to start the engine,we never had a problem with the flap operations tho.do you know the micro switches are making at each flap setting?