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02-20-2019, 09:46 AM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Saint Simons Island , GA
Posts: 1,523
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Lifter Failure
I have (had) a Titan DIOX370 on my 8. Great engine and ran trouble free for 5 years/ 950ish hours. Started burning oil like crazy but everything else was right where it should be. Good compression, clean pipes and plugs but dirty oil and using a quart about every 3 hours like a switch was flipped. Found a collapsed breather hose, replace and thought I was good to go and lucky that the crank seal stayed in. Talked to engine shop and thought I had glazed cylinders or just broke a ring or any other myriad of things that can go south in a cylinder, so off to JB's for a top inspection and top overhaul as required.
They pulled a cylinder and found this..
you can see how the lifter is just coming apart and the scored crank in the background. This is lifter part number 7287R and it seems these came from a batch in late 2012ish that may have been produced with improper hardening done.
and this. You can see how the cam lobe is chewed up also.
and this. Another view of the top of the lifter. You can see how clean the inside of the engine was.
It has been five years and 950ish hours since new. I have never gone more than 2 weeks between flying, usually much more frequently than that, changed oil and filters religiously every 50 hours at most, sometimes at closer intervals and used CAM GUARD for the past 3 years since I got out of flying shows very, very regularly.
I'm posting this just as a heads up that if you have an engine from this time frame, really watch those filters at oil changes. Mine went from clean to full of very, very fine black dust that was not visible, but a magnet picked it up after the filter was washed and dried. This happened very fast once the metal started circulating around.
This is not meant to be any kind of negative thread, just a heads up and a reminder to really, really check those filters when changing the oil. There were warning signs to me in the oil consumption and I just happened to have the filter laying in the trash from the change preceding this one and after I washed the mesh and ran a magnet over it I found a little of the ferris metal there. I'm sure going forward I will be much more diligent when inspecting used filters. Absolutely nothing visible, but the old magnet found it. If your engine was produced in this time frame, I would keep an eye out.
New Superior engine is already built and almost ready for installation.
__________________
Jerry "Widget" Morris
RV 8, N8JL, 3,000+ hours on my 8.
VAF #818
Saint Simons Island, GA. KSSI
PIF 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
 I just wish I could afford to live the way I do
Last edited by RV8iator : 02-20-2019 at 09:50 AM.
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02-20-2019, 10:16 AM
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VAF Moderator / Line Boy
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dayton, NV
Posts: 12,256
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Interesting pictures Widget - they look just like the “bad” lifters that they pass around at the Lycoming engine school - good to low that the engine will keep running with the surfaces that bad!
The warning we got in class as that there is a very thin nitride surface on the face, and when it goes, you have to throw the thing away - some people will try to machine the surface smooth again, but the nitride layer is gone, and that is the hardness - so the repair doesn’t last very long.
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Paul F. Dye
Editor at Large - KITPLANES Magazine
RV-8 - N188PD - "Valkyrie"
RV-6 (By Marriage) - N164MS - "Mikey"
RV-3B - N13PL - "Tsamsiyu"
A&P, EAA Tech Counselor/Flight Advisor
Dayton Valley Airpark (A34)
http://Ironflight.com
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02-20-2019, 10:53 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: LSZF
Posts: 421
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thanks for sharing Jerry.
Bad luck indeed. Probably would have been picked earlier with an oil analysis, not that it would have had any other outcome, once a lifter and the cam are fried... too late anyway.
Best of luck with that new engine!
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Life's short... Enjoy
DC aka Dan
http://www.aerofun.ch
RV-6.9 #25685, slider, O-360-A3A (carb/dual Lightspeed II), MTV-12-B, HB-YLL owner & lover
RV-4 #2062 HB-YVZ airframe builder
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02-20-2019, 11:05 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Fremont
Posts: 59
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point in picking it up earlier?
point in picking it up earlier? apparently the engine kept running fine and would have run some more before the metal really shows up in the filter
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02-20-2019, 11:30 AM
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: 8I3
Posts: 3,564
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Was this on the exhaust tappet?
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Please don't PM me! Email only!
Bob Japundza CFI A&PIA
N9187P PA-24-260B Comanche, flying
N678X F1 Rocket, under const.
N244BJ RV-6 "victim of SNF tornado" 1200+ hrs, rebuilding
N8155F C150 flying
N7925P PA-24-250 Comanche, restoring
Not a thing I own is stock.
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02-20-2019, 12:13 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Saint Simons Island , GA
Posts: 1,523
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rocketbob
Was this on the exhaust tappet?
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Bob, it was the intake side.
__________________
Jerry "Widget" Morris
RV 8, N8JL, 3,000+ hours on my 8.
VAF #818
Saint Simons Island, GA. KSSI
PIF 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
 I just wish I could afford to live the way I do
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02-20-2019, 12:25 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Schaumburg, IL
Posts: 5,297
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Sorry to hear of your troubles. That looks like spalling from corrossion. I would expect wear from a non-hardened surface to look very different. The sharp features in the pitting seems to point to corrosion. Hardening doesn't really change the potential for corrosion.
Larry
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N64LR - RV-6A / IO-320, Flying as of 8/2015
N11LR - RV-10, Flying as of 12/2019
Last edited by lr172 : 02-20-2019 at 12:31 PM.
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02-20-2019, 01:42 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Saint Simons Island , GA
Posts: 1,523
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lr172
Sorry to hear of your troubles. That looks like spalling from corrossion. I would expect wear from a non-hardened surface to look very different. The sharp features in the pitting seems to point to corrosion. Hardening doesn't really change the potential for corrosion.
Larry
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Well, if it will corrode in a week maybe but that engine has never sat long. According to the engine guru?s that are far brighter than me, it?s the hardening that failed.
Every other engne expert I?ve showed this to said it looked like hardening failure to them.
Maybe you can provide photos of what corrosion failure looks like.
__________________
Jerry "Widget" Morris
RV 8, N8JL, 3,000+ hours on my 8.
VAF #818
Saint Simons Island, GA. KSSI
PIF 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
 I just wish I could afford to live the way I do
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02-20-2019, 02:04 PM
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: 8I3
Posts: 3,564
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If it were corrosion related it would be evident on multiple tappet faces and you'd see signs of rust on other things like mag gears cylinder bores.
Normally you see a little indentation on the tappet faces when new. They're checked individually with a rockwell hardness tester so I think it would be unlikely to see one fail due to a manufacturing defect.
But you have to consider what happens when you run an engine with a lot of on/off throttle movements in the airshow biz. Tappet faces get splash lube so what happens when the oil pressure suddenly goes to zero?
__________________
Please don't PM me! Email only!
Bob Japundza CFI A&PIA
N9187P PA-24-260B Comanche, flying
N678X F1 Rocket, under const.
N244BJ RV-6 "victim of SNF tornado" 1200+ hrs, rebuilding
N8155F C150 flying
N7925P PA-24-250 Comanche, restoring
Not a thing I own is stock.
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02-20-2019, 02:13 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Saint Simons Island , GA
Posts: 1,523
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rocketbob
If it were corrosion related it would be evident on multiple tappet faces and you'd see signs of rust on other things like mag gears cylinder bores.
Normally you see a little indentation on the tappet faces when new. They're checked individually with a rockwell hardness tester so I think it would be unlikely to see one fail due to a manufacturing defect.
But you have to consider what happens when you run an engine with a lot of on/off throttle movements in the airshow biz. Tappet faces get splash lube so what happens when the oil pressure suddenly goes to zero?
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Bob, just trying to understand your last sentence. The tappets get splashed by oil, so what?s suddenly zero oil pressure have to do with that. I also had inverted oil system so mever actually had zero preasure.
__________________
Jerry "Widget" Morris
RV 8, N8JL, 3,000+ hours on my 8.
VAF #818
Saint Simons Island, GA. KSSI
PIF 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
 I just wish I could afford to live the way I do
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