1971 Cessna 210 Centurion

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

Thought I'd share something else that I'll be trying to deal with eventually. This is my dad's final plane that he bought. It's got a Teledyne Continental IO 520-L motor in it. It does 300 HP at takeoff RPMs and it dials back to 285 at cruise. It has a max safe speed of 200 mph, and it cruises at 185 mph. The instrument panel and avionics are decent - plenty worse and plenty better.

It's had a pretty rough life, which is the reason I don't even think about trying to pawn it off on someone else at this point. It originally lived in the Australian interior where it was damaged in a sandstorm. It was then taken to Jakarta, Indonesia where it was gone through and put back together. I know that a guy owned it in Alaska and crashed it in a river, and it's had one or two gear up landings in Mississippi. My dad bought it for a relatively cheap price, bought and installed the belly skins, and threw a fancy new propeller on it.

It's sat for years just like this, but all it needs to start is a new battery. I've thought about not getting the battery and just hand propping it for the initial start, but I'd need someone to actually crank it for me so I can be in there on the brakes and managing the throttle. I don't even know if that'll work as well as think for the simple reason of not being able to cycle the booster pump, but the engine is magneto driven, and the fuel pump/IP are mechanical so it may be possible if I prime it with starter fluid. Not 100% on my plan yet. If I can taxi it to the pump and put some fresh avgas in it, I'll be happy for now. And I'm not a pilot by any means, but I learned as much from my dad while I had him, and having vehicular mechanical knowledge and an understanding of electronics coupled with what I was able to glean from him goes a lot farther than you'd think. Just thought I'd share something different to shake it up a little.

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[da_raabi]

That's pretty cool. Be careful working on it though. You could really cause some issues down the road if you are not an A&P and you want to get it back in the air. You will likely need an annual done by an IA to get it re-authorized to fly.

Or you could just get it classified as "Experimental"... that always works too lol.

 

[ajd89]

That's pretty cool! I seen the other post with the pic and was gonna ask but you posted it up here. Hope you get it running what the plan after that? Gonna get a pilot's license?

 

[gpmorgan]

Being from Ms. I say put a BBC on it. Lol. Nice ride.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

That's pretty cool. Be careful working on it though. You could really cause some issues down the road if you are not an A&P and you want to get it back in the air. You will likely need an annual done by an IA to get it re-authorized to fly.

Or you could just get it classified as "Experimental"... that always works too lol.

Oh, I will. I just want to get it running and mix in some fresh fuel. That fuel's at least from 2008. Maybe '07. I don't want to do anymore than that without an A&P. My dad fixed up a B55 Baron about seventeen years ago, and he'd do all the work and get an A&P to sign off on the work. The FAA still sent an agent out to bitch at him, but he told them if someone brought him a space shuttle to have him do the work on it, as long as someone was endorsing the work, he'd do it. They didn't bother him after that, and he actually built a beautiful airplane that he got out of a junkyard for peanuts (tornado damage). I'm not him, though. I also don't know any good A&Ps or IAs. All the ones that my dad was friends with were killed in plane crashes, and the two that he got to do the last two annuals the 210 had were pretty shady. Another problem is the TCM airworthiness directive on prop strikes. You're supposed to send in the motor to their factory in Alabama for an inspection and overhaul, which costs about 25K-30K if I'm not mistaken. All my dad did was dial the crank and call it a day to bypass the costs of that ordeal, which is a good way to scare off potential buyers.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

That's pretty cool! I seen the other post with the pic and was gonna ask but you posted it up here. Hope you get it running what the plan after that? Gonna get a pilot's license?

I'd love to get my pilot's license before I start working! This is a high performance - high maintenance plane so I'd start with something a lot simpler. I actually found a Cessna 152 a few miles down the road when I was 15/16 that a guy was selling for a good price, which would have been perfect to learn in, and I tried to borrow the money from my dad, but it never panned out. A Cessna 170 would be my dream plane to start out with. It's max safe speed is 140, and the cruise is 120 mph. Simple, fuel efficient, and low maintenance. Plus, it's carbureted so you can run 87 octane car gas in it instead of 100LL avgas. I checked the gas price at the FBO where this 210 is, and it was $4.25/gallon.

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[vkh]

Very cool

So I've always heard you can't run any ethanol in a plane due to icing, can you get ethanol free 87? I've never seen anything less than 91 ethanol free.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

Most of the towns I've been to or through in the Deep South have 87 octane ethanol free at multiple stations. It's usually the big stations, but I've seen it at the dumpy hole in the wall stations, too.

 

[vkh]

Ahh, around here it seems to be a premium only thing. Now I've spent most my time in small towns but I have to hunt to find ethanol free at all.

 

[78C10BigTen]

Most of the towns I've been to or through in the Deep South have 87 octane ethanol free at multiple stations. It's usually the big stations, but I've seen it at the dumpy hole in the wall stations, too.

Ive seen a bunch of places here in PA that have ethanol free 87. One near my house because i buy it for my riding mower because its frequently unused. But they take the price up like 75 cents/gal more then regular.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

Ive seen a bunch of places here in PA that have ethanol free 87. One near my house because i buy it for my riding mower because its frequently unused. But they take the price up like 75 cents/gal more then regular.

Oh, yeah. Here it's about fifty cents more per gallon.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

Being from Ms. I say put a BBC on it. Lol. Nice ride.

Thanks! I've seen where someone put a 6.0 LS in a Cessna 172, and I've seen other Gen III engine conversions in planes on the internet. Unfortunately, they detune the hell out of those motors so you can't tear the motor up with the constant high RPMs or tear the airframe up with a motor that can do way more than the plane was built to handle, but they've still had problems with some of them. Plus, you have a liquid cooled motor that uses a distributor or coil-near-plug system with one plug per cylinder where you had an air cooled motor that used mags and two plugs per cylinder. I looked for a few videos, and they do sound cool when they have something else under the hood that's not a Continental or a Lycoming.

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And @Honky Kong jr, you'd probably like this.

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[Honky Kong jr]

Thanks! I've seen where someone put a 6.0 LS in a Cessna 172, and I've seen other Gen III engine conversions in planes on the internet. Unfortunately, they detune the hell out of those motors so you can't tear the motor up with the constant high RPMs or tear the airframe up with a motor that can do way more than the plane was built to handle, but they've still had problems with some of them. Plus, you have a liquid cooled motor that uses a distributor or coil-near-plug system with one plug per cylinder where you had an air cooled motor that used mags and two plugs per cylinder. I looked for a few videos, and they do sound cool when they have something else under the hood that's not a Continental or a Lycoming.

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And @Honky Kong jr, you'd probably like this.

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That's cool. I used to work on an Gyro copter powered by a 2110cc Beetle engine. Work on it that's it. The guy ended up running it into the side of his house and sold what was left. Lol well except his pride. Lol

 

[gpmorgan]

I see you're from my state. Just throwing in a little humor. I know absolutely nothing about planes. I try to stay on the ground.

 

[1987 GMC Jimmy]

I see you're from my state. Just throwing in a little humor. I know absolutely nothing about planes. I try to stay on the ground.

Oh, how about that! I never noticed there was another regular member from my home state. There's a guy on here from Booneville who's building a truck for his teenaged daughter. I actually lived for two years in Columbus, and I graduated high school from MSMS. I used to go to Tupelo all the time, and I had a good friend from there in my graduating class who went to TCU. I went to school with plenty of people from Tupelo and Saltillo.