George Moore wrote:

Paul & Group,
   Recently I offered to buy a used engine, sight unseen, from a
gentleman who said it was blowing smoke from a bad rear oil seal. Well,
he refused my generous offer, but during our conversations he mentioned
that if it turned out to be an apex seal and the housing was damaged,
used rotor housings were available for around $100, and you could get
reconditioned housings for something like $175 !
   A friend on one of my rotorcraft newsgroups, told me tonight that he
had a 12A and a 13B engine, both of which were ruined by damaged apex
seals !  He was debating about trashing them, and naturally I advised
him not to, as well as telling him, that I'm sure that he has a lot more
good usable parts in those engines than bad, and therefore he should
rebuild them, or sell them to me, cheaply, and I'll rebuild them.
   So, my question is, how available are used and preferably
reconditioned rotor housings ? And how much can I expect to pay for them
? When an apex seal goes south, what kind of damage can be passed on to
the rotor itself, or the side housings ?
   Here in Maryland, we don't seem to have as may used or junked Rotary
engines as my friend Phil Williamson was able to find, with his
Northwest U.S., gold strike of $75 per engine !

First I have heard of a reconditioned rotor housing. Real hi tech in
those rotor housings. A new one runs $275 to $375 as I recall.
The end and center  housing can usually be lapped without going 
all the way through the hardened surface. Racing Beat built their own 
lapping machine.

The ecentric shaft and rotors are hard to hurt. A little easier to hurt
the rotors as a broken seal can tear up the seal slot.

PL

The Aircraft Rotary Engine Newsletter.              Powered by Linux.

http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            http://www.linux.org