Exhaust pipe craked

[Ulmo133]

Hello,

Just get last Friday to see my favorite mechanic for the 100h and some fixing on my CT. This trip was just a first look to check everything and see if he needs to order something.
After one hour (10 minutes check, 50 minutes tchat  ) he looked at me and said... : "I hope you've booked a taxi"...

The left rear exhaust pipe was completely cracked... After removing it, it turned out that there were two perpendicular cracks, one of which ran 180° around the pipe.

Fortunately there was a welder on the platform who took it home and two hours later (with a good meal) he brought it back to me as good as new (welded under neutral gas and cooled under gas + pressure test).

The mechanic told me that this often happened on Rotax engines on this pipe, and that they had to be checked regularly, as the risk was still an in-flight engine fire. In my case, it must have been fairly recent, as there were no gas marks near the crack. 

So be careful and check regularly your pipes !

[FlyingMonkey]

Had the same problem 8 years ago while 1400nm from home.  My right rear pipe broke completely and I had serious cracks at the exhaust stack and muffler.  Roger Lee found me a good welder and got me going again in a day.

The joints on the CTSW exhausts are pretty bad.  When they break like that, it's usually because the exhaust system is mis-aligned and under tension for a long time.  The best way to fix the alignment is to loosen all the bolts on the exhaust pipes at the cylinders until the whole system can move pretty freely...then find the spot where everything hangs naturally and no pipes are bound or under tension, and re-tighten everything.  You'll probably have to re-adjust the heater inlet to match the cowling afterwards.  Roger helped me do this on my engine and everything has been fine since then.

[Ulmo133]

Thank you for the advice !