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Message
Rusty,
A
friend of mine is building a Lancair with a 20B. He ran the engine on a
test stand, gearbox, but no prop. He had a problem with the oil flow, and
the bearings were destroyed within a few seconds of running.
He
would have only had whatever assembly lubrication was present, but it surprised
me that the bearings would go so fast.
In
your case, and if you were running synthetic oil.....who knows, they may be
fine...maybe
Steve
Brooks
Something I will ask is at what rpm and power
setting did the
engine seize at??
The engine did NOT
seize. As I stated before, it quit because I tried to throttle up with
the mixture set way lean. I have no reason to believe the engine is
damaged, aside from what feels like a bit less compression than normal.
As for the bearings,
Bruce also said the bearings would be the first to go, but I have to wonder
now if that isn't a car vs airplane experience. He sees car engines that
have run for some time without oil, but at very low power settings. In
that case, the bearings may be the first to go. In your case, you ran at
high power, which would probably generate enough heat to seize the engine,
possibly before the bearings got damaged.
I still find it very
hard to believe the engine ran without oil pressure for more than about 30
seconds, and did so at very lean mixture, and idle power. I can't see
how this is any more damaging than cranking the engine several
times. Maybe I'll learn something from the oil filter
tomorrow.
Cheers,
Rusty
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