Ring Gear - 6 missing teeth

roadrunner20 · #1 03-07-2011, 07:18 PM

My condition inspection exposed my ring gear having 6 missing teeth.
The missing teeth appear to have been partially fractured some time ago as it looks partially aged on about 25% of the missing tooth surface. I had a starter kickback on first start almost 5 years ago. Maybe, the cause?
I pulled the flywheel and will be bringing it to Zephyr Engines in the morning to have them install the new ring gear.

Is this a fairly common occurrence?
I have a Superior XP-IO360 with a SkyTec starter.

Larco · #2 03-07-2011, 08:08 PM

About 4 years ago I replaced 2 ring gears on engines like yours. Superior had changed vender's and had to replace some due to broken teeth. The ones with problems had no radius at the bottom of the teeth, they, after waiting for the good ones had a radius like the Lycs and are working fine. Larry

gvouga · #3 03-08-2011, 07:55 PM

I lost a few teeth due to a kickback on the first start of my engine in 2008. I have a Superior XP-360 also. I called Superior and they had a history of this issue and sent me a new ring gear.

The defective ring gear had sharp angles in the vallies between the teeth. The new gear had radiused valies between the teeth. The new ring gear has been trouble free for 700hrs.

Greg

roadrunner20 · #4 03-08-2011, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LARCO

About 4 years ago I replaced 2 ring gears on engines like yours. Superior had changed vender's and had to replace some due to broken teeth. The ones with problems had no radius at the bottom of the teeth, they, after waiting for the good ones had a radius like the Lycs and are working fine. Larry

Mine was the one without the radius at the base.
I had a new one installed today. It was a Lycoming & I can see where this one would be more durable. I just took the hub over to Zephyr Engines for the installation. Nice folks. They had the oven ready when I got there. Took about 30 minutes.

roadrunner20 · #5 03-08-2011, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gvouga

I lost a few teeth due to a kickback on the first start of my engine in 2008. I have a Superior XP-360 also. I called Superior and they had a history of this issue and sent me a new ring gear.

The defective ring gear had sharp angles in the vallies between the teeth. The new gear had radiused valies between the teeth. The new ring gear has been trouble free for 700hrs.

Greg

Thanks for the feedback. As you can see from my previous post, I'm now good to go.