I’m with Achimba, it’s defective material. We are in the age of third world manufactured metal. Continental have just gone through a bad batch of cam followers (lifters) made in Mexico apparently. Mine started spalling at 200 hours. Continental replaced them.
I’m not convinced that surface rusting caused by high humidity, salinity and/or long periods of inactivity necessarily causes the metal to fail. Bad metal is bad metal. If the material is cooked properly then the flash rust will just rub off without causing any issue at all but if the metal is substandard in some way then the corrosion can be inter granular and start to weaken the metal.
In my business we buy metal containers from China and Finland. The material is the same according to the cast certificate but in practise the Chinese steel shatters if you belt it with a hammer on a really cold day. Point is, some third world manufactured metal does not come with the 150 years of knowledge they built up in Sheffield.
Third world metal has found its way into our engines and there is not a lot we can do about it.
Third world metal has found its way into our engines and there is not a lot we can do about it.
If all this is a ‘metal problem’ then the industry must do something about it. I certainly think it’s a component problem of one sort or another.
This stuff could be getting, probably is, into our jetliners.
The likes of Continental and Lycoming should be onto it like a ton of bricks – it’s the good name of their product which is been damaged.
We all know that aviation does not come cheap. It comes even less cheap when a £32k engine it trashed after 600 hours.
Subcontracting is all well and good, but the product should be 100% (better say percentage) to the original specification. The companies are been hoodwinked if they let their subcontractors get away with.
I’m considering raising this general issue, and our specific one, with AOPA / IAOPA
Pics of our 8 x followers and camshaft. Note there are only six cam lobes as two have a follower at each side – those cams must be working hard !!
Difficult to see the cam damage, but it’s sure is there.
Anybody guess which failed first – the cams destroying the follower or vice versa?
Note two followers are ‘brand-new’ in the words of our engine man.
Regret don’t know which followers were ‘riding’ on which cams !
Another pic
And yet another
That would make me very angry.
Yep, has already made us co-owners angry.
The Australians are pretty clear on that. Probably you have a set of 15B26064 tappets.
Great Sebastian, well done – now we have it in writing.
Question – Who’s going to ‘take the rap’ ?
Think the parts bill ONLY to repair all the carnage is £4000 +
