Red tagged means?...

[miyu1975]

what...unusable. When asking about an engine on whiteindustries.com listed as "missing several components"..I rec'd this response. asking price 3500.00

The engine you have requested information about is a disassemble engine in boxes.(IO-360-A1A) L-890-51M. The missing parts are as follows--2 cylinders, 4 pistons, 4 wrist pins, all rocker arms and spark plugs. The crank has been red tagged.

If that is missing then what's left, the case and 2 cylinders?.

[cropdusterengineer]

If you were buying a timed out engine to overhaul, wouldn't you assume the pistons and wrist pins were trash anyway? Same for the plugs.

From reading the ad, I would assume I was getting the case, cam, lifters, rods, an oil pan, and everything on the aft end (gears, accessory drives, etc).

A new crank will be the big ticket item.

Even if you need a new crank, this MIGHT be a good deal if everything else is servicable.

A good 4 cylinder Lycoming gets harder and harder to find every day. Good luck!

CDE

[Ironflight]

Sounds to me like you'd be buying a case and a serial number....plus a few miscellaneous paperweights.

[Mel]

Yes; Red tagged means unusable!

[N62XS]

You may be able to sell the red tag parts to some of the airboat guys in FL. Over the past three years, I've bought 3 Lycoming 540 standard flange, 1 Lycoming 320 standard flange and a Continental C85-12. All were run out. The cylinders on all except two on the 320 were trash. I sent out all the accessory parts, cams, cranks, gears, lifters, etc. for overhaul. One crank and one cam were red tagged and went to the airboat guys in FL. I sold all of starters, fuel systems, alternators, etc on ebay and replaced them with new B & C starters, carbs or FI, B & C alternators, etc. New cylinders/yellow tagged cylinders are used.

I paid no more than $2500 for any of the Lycoming cores and $4500 for the Continental core. By the time everything is ready to run, I have between $11000 and $15000 in any of these engines. I know what is in each of them and I see them go together. I use the savings to defer the cost of other items during the build.

It may not be everyone's choice, but I prefer to do the engine this way and use the savings for used avionics, etc.

That price seems a little high, but 4 cylinder lycomings are hard to find. Ask around the small airports in your area if anyone has a good core engine. You will be surprised at how many are nearby.

Good luck.

[SteinAir]

For those of us who have to live under FAA scrutiny, Red Tag=Unserviceable and Unrepairable....in other words junk. In some instances Red Tagged parts also have to be scrapped and physically made unuseable as well, but not always.

From my standpoint I think that's a bit high pricewise. A friend of mine is just now looking at buying a good rebuildable core (it's still flying on a Piper - just high time) for about $5K. They are out there, you just have to hunt around a bit.

Cheers,
Stein

PS...Robby....if you're list of toys gets any longer I'm going to have to lodge a complaint-I'm jealous!!