ready1998
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2013
- Messages
- 265
- Reaction score
- 44
Hello All,
I'm in need of the group's expert knowledge and thoughts:
Two years ago I had a shop provide a major overhaul service onto my IO-360-C1C engine. It took them many more weeks to get the engine back to me than I had expected (16 vs. the originally quoted 8-10 weeks), but the engine has run great and has had fantastic compressions and low oil burn.
That was until these past two weeks where oil began to appear and streak on the top of the cowl. My mechanic originally thought that perhaps the crankshaft seal had gone bad, but the problem did not go away with its replacement. Further investigation found a crack on the case.
This has spawned off a flurry of activity with the engine shop where they're willing to pay half of the labor to remove and rehang the engine, shipping, and their own labor and part cost to correct the issue per their warranty. To say the least, I am furious - we spent serious money on this overhaul.
A deep dive into the documents provided with the overhaul found that the engine shop had sent the case to be inspected and repaired for fretting. But during its time at the case shop, two cracks must have been found as it was documented that they were repaired. My mechanic believes the present crack is in one of the area where a crack-repair happened as the area around the crack has been buffed/ground smooth.
Now my question is - I've recently heard that Lycoming does not deem a known-cracked case to be usable. If this is true, does this mean my overhaul wasn't "legal" to begin with? (i.e. do I have any leverage here?) Or is this sort of thing par for the course?
I will mention that going forward, it'll be difficult to convince me to not go the route of a Factory Re-manufacture - the money I "saved" by using a relatively well known engine shop will now be spent and more-so to correct this issue. The Lycoming Factory Reman's warranty would have covered this repair 100%.
I'm in need of the group's expert knowledge and thoughts:
Two years ago I had a shop provide a major overhaul service onto my IO-360-C1C engine. It took them many more weeks to get the engine back to me than I had expected (16 vs. the originally quoted 8-10 weeks), but the engine has run great and has had fantastic compressions and low oil burn.
That was until these past two weeks where oil began to appear and streak on the top of the cowl. My mechanic originally thought that perhaps the crankshaft seal had gone bad, but the problem did not go away with its replacement. Further investigation found a crack on the case.
This has spawned off a flurry of activity with the engine shop where they're willing to pay half of the labor to remove and rehang the engine, shipping, and their own labor and part cost to correct the issue per their warranty. To say the least, I am furious - we spent serious money on this overhaul.
A deep dive into the documents provided with the overhaul found that the engine shop had sent the case to be inspected and repaired for fretting. But during its time at the case shop, two cracks must have been found as it was documented that they were repaired. My mechanic believes the present crack is in one of the area where a crack-repair happened as the area around the crack has been buffed/ground smooth.
Now my question is - I've recently heard that Lycoming does not deem a known-cracked case to be usable. If this is true, does this mean my overhaul wasn't "legal" to begin with? (i.e. do I have any leverage here?) Or is this sort of thing par for the course?
I will mention that going forward, it'll be difficult to convince me to not go the route of a Factory Re-manufacture - the money I "saved" by using a relatively well known engine shop will now be spent and more-so to correct this issue. The Lycoming Factory Reman's warranty would have covered this repair 100%.
