NEW Engine OIL Pick-Up Tube

[Steve McGowan]

After almost 600 hrs on my Sparrow Hawk Gyro and the 2.5 suburu engine I installed a new heavy duty oil pickup tube..

Altho the factory tube was in perfect shape,,I still replaced it.

After some 11 mins the engine shut down because of low oil pressure. Yes I had a student and with no injuries or other damages to speak of.. And YES we were in flight in the pattern.

That almost 200 dollar item and a few hours work just turned into possibly 3000 dollars for a new engine, and down time on the machine.

Be sure that you have quality parts when you replace anythng on your gyro..

"I THOUGHT I DID"

And again,,, I am so thankful,, I had somewhere to go as it happened.

NOW.... The engine is on the floor,, and I have NO IDEA WHY this happened. AND.. It happened so Fast,,

[BUD ONEAL]

Sorry to hear this Steve. Happy that you were not hurt.

[Aussie_Paul]

Steve, it is a fine line between "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and "preventative maintenance".

FWIW, I have seen more damage from people "fiddling" with engines than from poor design in engines.

Aussie Paul.

[Steve Weir]

Glad you are OK and got it down safely! Hope the repair is not as bad as it sounds.

[Rusty Russell]

Glad you got down ok, all that practice comes in handy for sure. [I]m with Auzzie Paul on this one.

[Chopper Reid]

Originally Posted by Aussie_Paul

Steve, it is a fine line between "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and "preventative maintenance".

FWIW, I have seen more damage from people "fiddling" with engines than from poor design in engines.

Aussie Paul.

My thought exactly PB, gee, I have nearly 4000 hours on my 2.2 and I have replaced only a water pump and a couple of lots of cam belt idlers.

[Graeme Monro]

Originally Posted by Chopper Reid

My thought exactly PB, gee, I have nearly 4000 hours on my 2.2 and I have replaced only a water pump and a couple of lots of cam belt idlers.

All that maintenance Brian, don't that make you wish you had a rotax 900 series?

Graeme.

[billygyro]

Steve, glad your ok bro.
Good thing you had some good instructions along the way.
It pays to have a good instructor ha. Let me know if you need anything,see ya real soon.

[CLS447]

Steve, HD oil pickup tube ?

Why did you install this ? Where did you buy it ?

What failed with it ? Fall off or what ?

[GyroRon]

Did the pick up tube cause the engine failure or are you saying that after you changed that, the engine failed......?

[Rehan K.Janjua]

Hello Steve

Glad you made it down right, what caused it?
What is the service life a oil pump suction tube???

Brian use graphite grease, it will last 4 times longer.

Keep us posted.

Thank You
Rehan

[barnstorm2]

Originally Posted by CLS447

Steve, HD oil pickup tube ?

Why did you install this ??

He installed it because 2.5L soobs while fine IN CARS, chuck their oil pickup tubes fairly commonly in the harmonics environment (vibration) of gyros.

Those saying preventative mainance of a known problem, should be avoided, really concern me!

I was put down in a field myself from a STOCK EJ25 oil pickup failure that toasted the 250hr engine.

You can read about it here in your own thread, you must have missed post 10 & 11.

http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32841

If it were an aircraft engine, service billitins would have been released and a tested standard way to fix this conversion flaw would have been published.

Unfortunately, with the auto conversion route, you can find out about the problem sitting in a farmers field looking at your once new toasted engine or you can hope the fix you design and implement yourself will solve the problem.

Not being designed for air craft use there are a number of vibration sensitive points I think should have drilled bolts and safety wired, including the oil pickup attachment.

[barnstorm2]

Originally Posted by Chopper Reid

My thought exactly PB, gee, I have nearly 4000 hours on my 2.2 and I have replaced only a water pump and a couple of lots of cam belt idlers.

EJ22s and EJ25s are apples and oranges, just like anecdotal evidence and meaningful statistics.

Sounds like lots of cam belt fiddling to me.

Recommending not resolving a known issue is bad advice IMHO.

What knowledge IS needed is how we can correct these issues, currently it is anybody's guess.

It will be good to know what happened in Steve's case so we can benefit from this knowledge.

We dont have a manufacturer or paid engineers with vibration analysis equipment to find a proper fix for us, we only have our community.

Beating up on those willing to share this valuable information is at the detriment to us all.

.

[Rick Whittridge]

http://www.killerbmotorsport.com/ind...ickupStory.htm

I found this info, I don`t know much about these Subbys!

[barnstorm2]

Originally Posted by Rick Whittridge

http://www.killerbmotorsport.com/ind...ickupStory.htm

I found this info, I don`t know much about these Subbys!

That is a good article. Now take the harmonics generated by the oil pump running at 2x-3x normal RPM for a car and add in the prop, gearbox and 2per rev...

Great slide show: http://photos.killerbmotorsport.com/...Photo&ci=42241