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Time to buy new cylinders

N208ET

Well Known Member
I had a piston pin plug disintegrate 4 years ago in my 0-360. The result was a complete tear down and overhaul. It?s time for me to pick which cylinders to put on. I?m located in the northwest, and due to my job, don?t fly for 2 weeks at a time. I?m leaning towards Titan Nickel. I also see that there are different piston pins and plugs out there. I was running the old style pin with the brass plugs, but I do t know what caused the failure. It?s been a hard pill to
Swallow with only having 500 hours on the engine when it failed. Any opinion on which cylinders to buy? Pins and plugs? It?s a older narrow deck engine.

Randy
RV8A
 
I had a piston pin plug disintegrate 4 years ago in my 0-360. The result was a complete tear down and overhaul. It’s time for me to pick which cylinders to put on. I’m located in the northwest, and due to my job, don’t fly for 2 weeks at a time. I’m leaning towards Titan Nickel. I also see that there are different piston pins and plugs out there. I was running the old style pin with the brass plugs, but I do t know what caused the failure. It’s been a hard pill to
Swallow with only having 500 hours on the engine when it failed. Any opinion on which cylinders to buy? Pins and plugs? It’s a older narrow deck engine.

Randy
RV8A

I also had an engine start eating up pin plugs, but caught it early. Superior and Continental make a pin with integral plugs and I feel that it works MUCH better. Lycoming may make one as well. No issues since replacing. Usually the plug cocks a bit in the bore and then starts to wear. The integral ones are held firm, as they are pressed into the pin.

Curious what others report on brand preference. I am about to pull the trigger on 6 new cylinders for my 540 overhaul. Currently settled on Superior.

Larry
 
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how did you catch it?

early after I overhauled my 320, I started getting a troubling amount of metal in the filter - mostly very small flakes. I determined it was non-ferrous (used muriatic acid on the particles - Aluminum will fizz and dissolve, where as ferrous metal does not) and assumed aluminum due to the size and flake appearance. At 100 hours, the amount of metal started to increase and made the assumption that the pin plugs were entering a more destructive path. Pulled the cylinders and confirmed a few of the plugs were wearing. Honed, re-ringed and installed new pins with integral plugs. All good since. Lesson learned, the clearance on those plugs needs to be at the low end of the range. Better they get fused in place with carbon than to be allowed to move around too much. A very bad design for pin retention in my opinion.

I had hoped the wear would remain managable. However, Mahlon advised me that once the plug wear starts to increase, it usually goes down hill rapidly.

By the way, the blackstone reports never showed ANY meaningfull levels of aluminum. particles likely too big for their spectrometers. Those who rely on those reports to fortell problems, consider yourself warned. Filter testing is required, in my opinion. I no longer test my oil.

Larry
 
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I was lucky, but not that lucky

I had no signs of metal in the filter from the last change. But a low oil pressure alarm on rollout at my home field made me start investigating. Turns out there was so much metal in the oil suction screen it was starved for oil. Pretty much sure my EFIS saved my bacon.
 
which cylinders

Assuming that you're looking at chrome cylinders for their corrosion resistance, you should be able to get the same corrosion resistance with nickle-carbide cylinders while avoiding the difficult break-in and additional oil usage. Though, neither will keep the cam lobes and tappets from rusting. :eek:
 
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