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Superior Roller lifter stuck (IO 360) // Emergency Landing

T

timothetoulotte

I'm New Here
Hi there!

I'm new here, so i want to say hi to the whole community. I'm from France, and everything I'm reading here is precious, thank you all !

We had a stressfull event few weeks ago, our cylinder #2 brutally stopped at 300ft above the ground after go around, we had to do an emergency landing. That was not the best experience we had, especially with a 220hours Lycoming engine (IO-360-M2S).

After trying to find what was wrong (injection, rocker, valve, etc.), we finally discovered that it was the superior air parts roller lifter for the exhaust valve that was stuck.

We did remove the other roller lifter (intake), the camshaft is clean and lubricated, no metal parts were found in the filters, and we do change oil every 30-50h max.

Questions : Is anyone aware of that kind of problem ? What happened ? What can I do ? :confused:

(Our guess is a bore issue with this one, because the other roller lifter has been removed without problem!)

Thank you guys !

Attached, I added pictures and flight parameters (see the smooth engine RPM after cylinder #2 stopped) !
 

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looks like abnormal wear at the top edge or a manufacturing flaw, like a non concentric bore milled into the body. Given that, would expect other flaws in that lifter.
 
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Not sure how old the engine is but if I remember correctly SAP had problems with broken roller lifters early on.
 
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Thanks for your reply !

Engine is 7 years old, i'm not sure about magnetized parts...?

Walt, I heard about SAP crankshaft issues, but I was not aware about roller lifter problem, is there a service bulletin about that or any more info ?
 
I had a cam lobe fail and the first indication was a stuck valve. There was no metal in the filter or suction screen. There was metal in the oil pan when I pulled it.

My point is that you cannot assume the cam is not compromised based on the oil filter. I think that if I has strained my oil through a paint filter I would have seen the metal.
 

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Mconner7 said:
I had a cam lobe fail and the first indication was a stuck valve. There was no metal in the filter or suction screen. There was metal in the oil pan when I pulled it.

My point is that you cannot assume the cam is not compromised based on the oil filter. I think that if I has strained my oil through a paint filter I would have seen the metal.
Click to expand...

Do you think oil analysis via a company like Blackstone Labs would have picked up the metal in the oil?
 
Mconner7 said:
I had a cam lobe fail and the first indication was a stuck valve. There was no metal in the filter or suction screen. There was metal in the oil pan when I pulled it.

My point is that you cannot assume the cam is not compromised based on the oil filter. I think that if I has strained my oil through a paint filter I would have seen the metal.
Click to expand...

I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit alarmed by that thumbnail until I took a second glance!!
 
rv8ch said:
Do you think oil analysis via a company like Blackstone Labs would have picked up the metal in the oil?
Click to expand...

Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on how the wear is happening. If metal is just coming off in big chunks, it won't get distributed in the oil. Leaving a penny (an old copper one) in the sump is not going to show up as elevated copper in an oil sample.
 
blaplante said:
Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on how the wear is happening. If metal is just coming off in big chunks, it won't get distributed in the oil. Leaving a penny (an old copper one) in the sump is not going to show up as elevated copper in an oil sample.
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Agreed

They use a mass spectrometer and it only sees microscopic stuff. Cam wear due to spalled lifters tends to make larger chunks that are ripped off versus worn off, so these tests often miss it. Your case is somewhat unique, so can't really speculate. I had piston pin caps wearing away. The filter was coated with aluminum glitter. Lab results had a big smiley face next to the report that showed VERY low aluminum content:confused: The flakes were just too big to be seen by the equip. These are simply tools in a bag and have many limits to their diagnostic value.

Larry
 
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rv8ch said:
Do you think oil analysis via a company like Blackstone Labs would have picked up the metal in the oil?
Click to expand...

I had been doing oil analysis and they said the slightly elevated levels was indicative of lack of regular use.

I have heard from others that the metal shavings are so large that oil analysis is not likely to detect it. My first indication was scrape marks in the piston skirt when I pulled #3 after the stuck valve.

Here is a picture of the valve guide, whatever caused this was gone by the time I landed.
 

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stuck lifter

This happened to me. Superior roller cam O-360 with "first generation" lifters. Engine was delivered to me in 2007, first flight 2012. #2 exhaust lifter stuck on second flight. But it was intermittent.

Diagnosing and solving the problem was an adventure, to put it mildly. Put 100 hours on it trying to figure it out. Now at 1200 hours and 10 years later, has been trouble free since the fix.
 
Lars said:
This happened to me. Superior roller cam O-360 with "first generation" lifters. Engine was delivered to me in 2007, first flight 2012. #2 exhaust lifter stuck on second flight. But it was intermittent.

Diagnosing and solving the problem was an adventure, to put it mildly. Put 100 hours on it trying to figure it out. Now at 1200 hours and 10 years later, has been trouble free since the fix.
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Very interesting! Do you have further information about how you fix it? Youu had to disassemble the whole crankcase to remove the lifter from the inside? My fear is a damaged crankcase because of the broken lifter, that's why I don't want to force on the lifter to remove it from the outside....

Tell me!
 
Lifter of concern date range ?

Is there a date/ ser. no. range of concern. My engine was fabricated in 2017. Should I be concerned ?
 
timothetoulotte said:
Very interesting! Do you have further information about how you fix it? Youu had to disassemble the whole crankcase to remove the lifter from the inside? My fear is a damaged crankcase because of the broken lifter, that's why I don't want to force on the lifter to remove it from the outside....

Tell me!
Click to expand...

My experience may not be relevant, because Superior changed their lifter design at least 12 years ago, which among other things means the case is machined differently. The good news there as I understand it is that the revised style can be removed without splitting the case, unlike the ones I have.

That said...

During the entire time I was attempting to troubleshoot why my #2 cylinder was dropping off intermittently no one I communicated with in the aviation community guessed the true cause. Which turned out to be manufacturing debris in the lifter bore, causing the piston to stick intermittently. It was aggravating and at times frightening because the only way I was able to figure it out was by flying it.

Meanwhile I tried the wobble test and reaming the exhaust guide even though there was no evidence of sticking (got really good at both procedures), different flow divider, different fuel injectors, even pulled the cylinder and sent it back to Superior. In their defense they paid for all of those parts.

Eventually I realized that it only tended to occur at high power settings; when cylinder pressure was reduced eventually the lifter piston would "unstick" and the cylinder would function again. During one of the last flights I conducted, it stayed stuck for several minutes. Yeah, flying with the engine shaking like a paint mixer is not fun, but remain calm.. I started leaning radically while monitoring the EGTs. Eventually, as the other three cylinders were signing off, #2 EGT started to rise. That cylinder was getting so little air that the fuel injector (engine runs P/A mechanical) was drowning it until I cut the fuel enough. This was visible on data I later uploaded to Savvy. Then suddenly the lifter unstuck, I had to quickly richen the mixture and back to the airport I went.

At that point I was convinced it was a lifter, and I learned from extensive searching that automotive engine builders around the same time my engine was built were having problems with stuck lifters, which were being manufactured offshore. My recollection is that one guy went to a dock and met the container, opened some boxes of lifters and started taking them apart. Found metal shavings in some of the bores.

I mentioned that to my contact at Superior (who admitted their first generation roller lifter was some General Motors-spec part, but aftermarket), and he didn't say that they had had problems. But he did say that even though officially the case had to be split to get the lifters out, working carefully from the outside with long snap ring pliers one could remove the lifter pistons from their bores. And magically, some lifter parts showed up on my doorstep.

A friend of mine and I went to work, were able to extract the pistons from both lifters on #2 cylinder. Wiped the bores with clean cotton swabs. Exhaust was clean, the intake not so much. We replaced the piston in that lifter with a new one, put everything back together and I went flying. 1100+ hours later the problem hasn't recurred.

That was a rough time. Took awhile before I developed confidence in my machine. Again, in fairness to Superior, by the time I was going through this (2012) they had filed for bankruptcy, been sold, and technically I had no warranty. But they worked with me, and I never paid for any of the parts they sent me, or shipping.

Hopefully what's happening to you is just a collapsed lifter, not a broken one, in which case it's possible since your engine almost certainly has second generation lifters, that you can extract the offending one through its bore, inspect it and possibly replace it.

Good luck.
 
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