Teflon spray for ignition leads - you need this.

[John McClanahan]

Hey Group - This has come up twice in the last few days.

The first case caused destruction of an otherwise airworthy ignition harness, $700 or so.  Here’s why -

Continental combined pretty much everything you need to know about their engines into a Standard Practice Maintenance Manual M-0.  You can find it on the web.  Lots of good info here.

By the way, if you think you know how to do a compression check on a Continental engine, you might want to review that section.  Most mechanics are not doing it properly I find.

Here’s page 6-66 -  On it you’ll see they want you to spray a specific powder teflon spray on the spark plug leads and the leads under the mag caps.  The spray is MS-122AD.  

My advice, don’t substitute anything else.  You don’t want oils, silicones, or whatever, just powdered teflon as Continental says.

What happens if you don’t use this stuff?  It just happened to Steve Hammer here at Falcon - several of his cigarettes stuck in the plugs and the wires pulled out..new harness, $700.

For myself, I’ve experienced this problem getting the leads out of the mags if they weren’t sprayed when assembled.  I almost wrecked the harness.

It’s not cheap as you’ll see on the web, $45 a can or so.  But one can will last several generations, so include it in your will.

I found some on eBay, 3 cans left at $35.  So you might want to grab some.. instead of borrowing mine..

I’ll post a link.

John McClanahan

[Ralph "Trapper" Trapaga]

Excellent points as usual, John. I have not used this spray on my Lycoming engine. Do you think it would apply equally to them?

I know what you mean about compression checks being another animal on TCM engines. Unlike with Lycomings, a Master Orifice tool must be used to determine the maximum amount of cylinder leakage, which is shown as a minimum PSI number. Sometimes this number can equal "40," which would have you pulling a Lycoming cylinder without question but is deemed acceptable with its TCM cousin. The attached link will take you TCM owners to Service Bulletin 84-15 that better explains it:

M8415.PDF

And here's a link to an MO tool available from Spruce:

Differential Pressure Tester With Master Orifice | Aircraft Spruce ®

Ralph "Trapper" Trapaga

165 Turnberry Cir

Fayetteville, GA  30215

Mobile: 678-571-9595

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[JBMcClanahan]

Hey Trapper - Yep, you should be using the teflon spray on Lycomings.  The ignition harnesses are all made of the same materials and Continentals can be equipped with either Slicks or Bendix (TCM) mags.

And you're right about the bulletin.  The good thing though is Continental pulled together just about all their service bulletins when they published M-0 so you'll see the information there, all in one place.  And as bulletins come out, the info is supposed to get added to the manual with updates.

Thanks -

John McClanahan

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/falconrv-list/CA%2B1qf52dt0Hhfypd8Y3JP_B6-kW4Axr45yxB4ht76gGDM9aqww%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ralph "Trapper" Trapaga]

All good to know, John. Thx for sharing!

Ralph "Trapper" Trapaga

165 Turnberry Cir

Fayetteville, GA  30215

Mobile: 678-571-9595