Znurtdog Posted January 24, 2014 Report Share Posted January 24, 2014 Hi all, just wanted to pass along an experience with a '08 912uls in a FD LS with about 250 hrs TT. With key in the 'start' pos. engine would turn over 1, maybe 2 blades then stop turning (new battery). With some gentle 'coaxing' with the switch, sometimes you could get it to continue to turn over and start. Upon close examination we found a discolored area (burn) on the firewall foil underneath the grounding post on the starting solenoid ( the one with the battery cable on it, i.e. outboard bolt) We found we could take up 2 or 3 more turns on both the solenoid attach bolts. In addition, and the thing that really helped imo, was adding a #8 wire from the batt ground terminal directly to the engine. We used a spot on the top of the engine that already had a few grounds on it. Now, the second you hit 'start' it turns like a banshee. The voltage drop was enough to shut off the Dynon ems 120 everytime you tried to start, now it's fine. Once again, a grounding problem! fwiw PS the person at Rotax I talked to at the LSA show in Sebring thought it was the sprag clutch in the starter and figured it would be about $1600 to fix.. Though to be fair, he didn't actually witness the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Lee Posted January 24, 2014 Report Share Posted January 24, 2014 Glad you're back on track. Grounds are extremely important especially in a carbon fiber plane. Any electrical issue should have ALL the grounds checked first and ruled out. Adding the extra ground wire as you did or like pictured under the maint. picture threads will eliminate this. Too many jump points in a ground system opens it up for just one to be loose and cause an issue. One solid ground wire helps eliminate this some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredG Posted January 25, 2014 Report Share Posted January 25, 2014 Thanks for reporting back how you solved the starting problem. This kind of real world "problem - solution" description adds a lot of value to the forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyingMonkey Posted January 25, 2014 Report Share Posted January 25, 2014 Hmm...maybe we should all check our starter connections! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mocfly Posted January 25, 2014 Report Share Posted January 25, 2014 Andy, Hope your done recovering and flying again. Anytime someone finds an item like this I believe its a good idea to check it on my aircraft. Another point I would make is to develop a checklist of items to look at when the cowling is off at oil change. This is a great opportunity to check grounding, inspect wire termination points, look for signs of leaks and any other abnormalities. I keep that spreadsheet in my aircraft binder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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