Case crack

[herve-RV7]

Hi All,

My A&P has just diagnosed a very small crack (oil leak) on the case of my Lycoming O320 during the annual we made last week end, close to the starter. This is obviously a bad (and expensive) news. Cracks in this location seem to happen sometimes. The engine has 700 hours SMOH, compressions are all reasonably good, 78 on the 4 cylinders. The engine will have to be taken down for case repair. As the engine will have to be disassembled, I am wondering if anything needs to be done in order to improve or extend the life of the engine. I am flying 50 to 100 hours a year, this is not much, I guess this is part of the equation.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions

[cajunwings]

I have used Divco in Tulsa numerous times for case repairs and have always been very satisfied with their work and prices.

[Don Patterson]

When overhauling our 360 I found one small crack and also sent it to Divco.
Give Divco a call and they will send you a box that you can send your case half's back for them to do the repair.

[erich weaver]

Originally Posted by herve-RV7

I am wondering if anything needs to be done in order to improve or extend the life of the engine.

Unlikely to have anything to do with your crack, but consider having Ney nozzles added to the engine during the rebuild to facilitate lubrication of the cams. This is a known weakpoint of lycoming engines and their clones

erich

[BPoletti]

Just out of curiosity, what is the total time on the engine case? Is there some known condition or incident (like a prop strike, fire, unusually cold temp) that can lead to a case crack?

Is there any way to predict that a case may be more prone to developing a crack?

[N941WR]

Check with ECI or an ECI dealer, you might be able to buy a new exp case for the price of your repair.

[agirard7a]

When I rebuilt my 0320 engine, I sent the case to
Divco. The service guy I spoke with said it was very
common that they had to repair cracks in the majority of Lycoming case's they receive. They did a very nice job. Your case will come back looking like new.
The cost was reasonable and worth all the money.

[loopfuzz]

Do you happen to have a photo of the case cracK?

[herve-RV7]

Hi All,

Thanks for your answers. Few words about the engine history, it has been overhauled once, the total time since new is 2700 hours.
The engine comes from a R22 helicopter which "crashed" (not a real crash, it just went on the side) at take off. The transmission between engine and gear box on the R22 is made with belts, in case of crash, the belts are acting as fuses, so no stress on the engine, in theory. The engine was carefully checked by am A&P before I purchased it, it was looking OK at that time. I flew 150 hours with it, with no issue...until now !

I will post a picture of the crack asap.

[DanBaier]

Divco did a nice job on my O-360 case - cost was very reasonable and far better than purchasing a new one.

Dan