flyrotary@lancaironline.net Mailing List Archive

The gears are oiled via a hole between teeth of the sun gear in The RD-1B oiling scheme (not an oil bath). The cavity inside the sun gear contains pressurized oil for this purpose. The volume of oil used by the drive for lubrication and cooling is quite significant so David was correct about the -4 feed line to the drive should never be used to supply anything else due to the pressure drop that can cause. I don't know if that was the root cause of his failure but I'm anxious to find out whatever it was.

Tracy
Sent from my iPad

On Oct 23, 2011, at 11:52 PM, Kelly Troyer <keltro@att.net> wrote:

Dave,

I am trying to remember how oil gets past the sleeve bearing to lube the planet and ring gear

of the RD1B..........Wonder if it is possible for the sleeve bearing to turn in the hsg and block

lube flow............Considering the size of the sealed front bearing it seems unlikely that it would

have seized............Be sure to let us know what Tracy finds..........

Kelly Troyer
"DYKE DELTA JD2" (Eventually)

"13B ROTARY"_ Engine
"RWS"_RD1C/EC2/EM2
"MISTRAL"_Backplate/Oil Manifold

"TURBONETICS"_TO4E50 Turbo

From: David Leonard <wdleonard@gmail.com>
To: Rotary motors in aircraft <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2011 9:06 PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Dave Leonard_Redrive

Kelly,
NOW you tell me. :-)

Unfortunately, I have not had time to even get to the bearings of the old drive, let alone take apart the new one (which I don't really plan to do.

That theory does make sense. There was clear evidence that the upper planets had overheated while the lower ones did not show heat damage. That still does not really explain why the bearings seized as well. They still wont let the prop shaft turn in the housing, so I cant turn the access holes in the prop flange to access the Allen screws to release the retainer plate. I'll let Tracy deal with that one.

Unfortunately, I have opposite engine offset and vert-stab offset that really would not like it if I reversed the prop direction. Hmmm. That is an interesting problem.. how to cool those upper planets.

--
David Leonard

Turbo Rotary RV-6 N4VY
http://N4VY.RotaryRoster.net
http://RotaryRoster.net

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 5:11 PM, Kelly Troyer <keltro@att.net> wrote:

Dave,

Any firm conclusions for the apparent lack of lubrication getting to the upper planets of your

RD1B re-drive during your Reno race heats ?...............I fully realize you were putting a lot of

turbo boosted power (probably 250+ hp) through the drive.............Have you had a chance to

inspect the re-drive that you borrowed for signs of overheat of the upper planets ?..........

Several years ago when the "Ross" re-drives were the only ones available for the Rotary I

remember reading of a similar problem with the 2.17 ratio..........The theory was that because

the 2.17 planet is fixed with the ring gear rotating around it that centrifugal force at high rpm

forced the lube from the ring gear and starved the upper planets.............Theory at that time

was the 2.85 and 3.17 re-drives were largely immune to this problem because the ring gear

of these drives is fixed and the planet rotates in an oil bath with this same centrifugal force

slinging lube directly to the ring gear teeth more or less equally.............FWIW

Kelly Troyer
"DYKE DELTA JD2" (Eventually)

"13B ROTARY"_ Engine
"RWS"_RD1C/EC2/EM2
"MISTRAL"_Backplate/Oil Manifold

"TURBONETICS"_TO4E50 Turbo