Club Homepage Forums Classified Ads Buy & Sell - Everything But Airplanes Imagine, if you will....

...that an opportunity came up to buy a '77 model Cessna 172 at your home airport.... One that you had probably a hundred or more hours in and liked the plane... One that just really needed a good cleaning up, and maybe an engine overhaul. But, otherwise, a nice, straight 172N...with the dreaded H2AD engine.

Let's say the price was 25,000, on the condition that the lifters and cam are perfect. Any spalling on the lifters drops the price 1000 bucks, and any spalling on any cam lobe drops the price about 8 grand (obviously that'd mean an overhaul.)

So....what say you? I'm not afraid of the H2AD engine. I understand the early problems, and what's been done up to this point to all but cure the early failure modes.

I know this plane, but would still perform an annual myself as a pre-purchase inspection, paying particular attention to the condition of the engine innards.

Let's say it's got 10,000 hours on the airframe, and 3000 hours smoh on the engine....and it flew 4 or 5 days a week for the past 8 years.

If I was to buy it...I'd probably have to get rid of the 150/150TD....Hmmmmmmmm Just thinking out loud...

Go for it, never know when your family is going to expand!

Or, I could buy a lot on an island and build a vacation home! Hi, Bryan!

Gary,

I had a 172N with the H2AD engine. About 4 years and 300+ hours without any problems (my ownership started at 1400 hours engine time, and the plane had been sitting a couple of years).

I had all the lifters pulled at the first annual for inspection, along with the cam lobes, and found all to be OK. From my research and experience, if your inspection indicates no pitting on the lifters/cam and you fly the plane regularly from that point on the H2AD engine will be no worse than any other. At the third annual we pulled about half of the lifters and they all were perfect, so we skipped the rest.

Another shortcoming is this engine has a single drive gear for both magnetos.

The Cessna Pilots Association has a good article on the H2AD engine, I can get it if you would like a copy.

I ended up switching to fine wire plugs to solve a perpetual fouling problem (in spite of very agressive leaning).

Otherwise this plane was a lot of fun and I would not hesitate to jump at a great deal on another one.

Thank you, Charles. I would love to read that article from the CPA. I'm currently in "sponge mode," absorbing all the information I can get my hands on about these planes and their notorious powerplants.

The guy that repaired the cylinders on my 150 told me that the H2AD engine is the best one going now. Sounds biased to me, but he loves them.

Gary,

I sent a couple articles to the e-mail listed in your profile...let me know it they do not arrive.

Well...I can't leave you wondering. I did receive the articles, and I appreciate the information very much. It's very enlightening. Seems there's more support for the 172's than for our 150's.

Thank you, Charles.

Hello Gary!
The lot next to me is for sale and I couldn't think of a better neighbor! Oh and the fishing is good up here too!

The only thing to "imagine" here is......how come you didn't start this with:































WATCH THIS SPACE




Like SOME people here are known to do?????????




Jim

Ha ha, Jim. Good one. Just feeling things out right now. We'll see how it goes.