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Re: TSIO-550 Critical Service
Bulletin
An important posting about the TSIO550 piston and
Critical Service Bulletin
Posted for "Greg Wroclawski, Malibu
Owner" <gwroclaw@optonline.net>
I am the Malibu owner referenced by George Braly in the thread
about
CSB04-6. This issue requires attention since its only a matter of
time
before these position stamps can cause a piston failure which
escalates into
an engine failure in minutes.
My engine failure happened in October of 2001. I was at 17500 feet in
level
cruise flight over the Delaware Bay. I noticed the engine started to
feel a little
rough. I glanced down at my engine monitor and noticed that cyl 4 was
cold.
It was daytime VFR but I had flight following and I notified ATC
that I
would like to divert to Atlantic City Intl (ACY) because I had a
rough
engine. At this point I was about 40nm away but with the Malibu's
excellent
glide ratio and prevailing winds aloft I was sure I could make it even
if my
engine quit on the spot.
Though I would pass several airports along the way. I knew ACY had a
10,000
ft runway and emergency services in case I made a mess of it.
Within
minutes my oil pressure dropped to zero and the engine MAP dropped to
about
15-16 inches. I declared an emergency although I could stll maintain
altitude at about 110kts.
I entered a spiral at about 15500 ft over ACY. At this point I figured
why don't I shut
down the engine just in case I botched the roll out to short final
maybe I
could get a few seconds of power to make a correction. After pulling
the
mixture and shuting off the mags and fuel the engine kept windmilling
at
~1000rpm at the 90kt best glide speed. It is interesting to note that
at that
rpm the electrical system voltage was still at 28+ volts and the
vacuum was in the
green. I kept the steep spiral over ACY going and at about 8000ft the
engine
seized. I later found out it locked up because the engine threw a
couple of
connecting rods out of the block. I rolled out high over ACY's 10000ft
runway and
threw out the gear, flaps and spoilers simutaneously and made a text
book
landing. I had my entire family (wife and two children) aboard.
Fortunately the FAA decided to red tag the engine which requires a
formal
investigation as to the cause of failure. I contacted George Braly in
my
search for answers and he recommended an engine expert to attend
the
investigation on my behalf. In the mean time, I ordered a factory
reman from
Continental. I also spoke with Kevin Mead, the undisputed PA-46 expert
in
North America. Besides operating a shop which does annuals on about
150
PA-46's per year (he's got a lot of people working for him) he is a
clearing
house for everybody with problems with PA-46s. He told me of two
other
similar engine failures he had heard of. The first one happened in
November
of 2000 in Texas. The other one happend two weeks before mine in
Wisconsin.
I contacted the owner of the episode in Wisconsin. The owner told me
how
carefully he operated the engine and in his case the failure occurred
right
at take off. The tower told him he was trailing smoke and he
immeadiately
turned back and landed. In that short time the engine had ejected
about half its oil.The engine suffered no other damage besides the
cracked piston. He sent me a nice picture (attached, 68 KB file) of
the piston showing the crack originating from the cross in
the #4 and a hole which formed when hot gasses started to leak
through the
crack. Several months later I found out that this owner brought his
airplane
to Mead Aircraft for an annual. The during a routine borescope of
the
cylinders (Kevin Mead is very thorough) they found cracks in pistons
of cyl
1 and 5 originating from the position stamps. They still had not
turned into
holes but it was going to happen soon.
Back to the episode in Texas. The NTSB investigated this episode since
the
aircraft was destroyed. They came to an incorrect conclusion blaming
the
failure on an uncalibrated TIT gauge. But this was the first
failure of this
kind with no previous history to draw on.
My engine failure analysis took place in Jan of 2002. The conclusion
was
that the failure was caused by the position stamps creating a stress
riser
in the piston crown over the piston pin (the highest stress place on
the
piston). This eventually caused a crack. Hot combustion gases forced
through the crack cause a hole to burn through the top of the piston
pressurizing the crankcase and forcing the oil overboard through the
breather. See attached photo.
The engine was about 7 years old with about 1000hrs total time. It had
about 600hours on the pistons and cylinders. Even though it had this
much time Continental agreed to give me a $17,641 "warranty
adjustment" and a full $14,000 core credit on my old trashed
core. So with all these adjustments the new reman engine cost me less
than $24,000 dollars. I think they were trying to buy me so I didn't
sue their asses off.
In December of 2001 Continental had stopped the position stamping
process as
a result of the two previous failures. My new engine was built in
November
of 2001 so it had position stamps.
After a few irrate phone calls to Continental they agreed to replace
my
pistons with unstamped units.
This position stamping process had been done for over 30 years on
both
Lycoming and Continental engines. Why did it all of a sudden turn into
a
problem. I believe the answer is how Continental got to the 550
displacement
from the 520. They did it by simply stroking the engine by 1/4 of an
inch.
Externally the TSIO520BE which came in the original Malibus and
the TSIO550E or C which most Malibus had been converted to are
identical. The engine swap does not even change the W&B by one
ounce.The cylinders are identical on both the 520BE and the 550
engines. To accomodate the longer stroke they simply put in slightly
shorter connecting rods and pistons with thinner crowns. The thinner
crowns were the achilles heal on top of a change in the piston
supplier which occurred in 1998. The previous piston supplier's
pistons don't seem to have this problem.
The TSIO-550 can replace the original TSIO-520 in Malibus since 1994
when
the STC to do so came out. Most Malibus (about 280 on the FAA
registry) have been converted to the larger engine since then. Since
the average Malibu is
flown about 170 hours a year so there is a lot of fleet time to draw
from.
In 1989 the Malibu was re-engined by Piper with a Lycoming and became
the
Malibu Mirage or simply Mirage.
To this date there have been at least 12 forced landings of Malibus
due
these position stamps causing piston failures. All cases, except
this one in Wisconsin, resulted in engine destruction. The most recent
one occurred about a month and a half ago. Most don't appear in the
NTSB files (like mine) because the owners put them down on an airport
without any
damage. I only know of two which resulted in damaged or destroyed
aircraft.
Even if your engine has been top overhauled by a independent
shop since your
engine was new most likey that shop put position stamps into your
pistons
because thats what they've been doing for the last 30+ years because
it is
shown in the factory overhaul manual to do so. (emphasis
added)
In July of 2002, Continental issued a service letter which indicated
that
they no longer are putting position stamps in pistons at the
factory.
However, this service letter did not instruct field repair facilities
to
stop the position satmping process. This did not happen until
CSB04-6 which
came out in June of 2004. This CSB also indicates to inspect the
pistons
every 100 hours for cracks. Much too long of an interval in my
opinion.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS GET THE PISTONS WITH POSITION STAMPS OUT OF
YOUR ENGINES. ONE OF THESE DAYS SOMEBODY IS GOING TO DIE OVER
THIS.
As Paul Harvey would say: And now the rest of the story........
Well I thought I was in great shape since Continental paid to
have the pistons with position stamps removed from my engine back in
March of 2002. Well my local maintenance shop just went ahead and
performed the inspection outlined in CSB04-6 about a month ago. They
found position stamps in my pistons!!! How the hell did they
reappear? Well last year I suffered a nose gear collapse. As
part of the normal repair process the engine is torn down and
inspected to check for any internal damage due to the sudden stoppage.
I told the repair shop to send the engine out to Teledyne Mattituck
Services in Long Island. They've had a stellar reputation as a engine
repair facility for over 40 years before they were acquired by TCM a
few years ago. Now that they were owned by Continental you would think
they would be up on the latest repair practices. Well
during the tear down, they went ahead and stamped my pistons with
position stamps!!!
I contacted them and spoke to their General Manager Jay Wickham.
He agreed with my concerns and said let's get those stamped pistons
out of my engine. So I'm scheduled to bring my airplane to their shop
next week and have my pistons replaced with the latest and greatest
new style piston (much stronger I'm told) at their expense. You just
can't make this stuff up.
Greg Wroclawski
Am I the only one who missed the July
2004 Critical Service Bulletin on
the TSIO-550??? I was surfing the Continental site Friday when I
happened
to check out the service bulletin area and there it
was.....CSB04-6.
If you have a TSIO-550 manufactured or rebuilt between 04/28/1998
and
09/11/2003 this CSB applies to you. It seems that some pistons
were
"position stamped" above the piston ring bore which has
caused some
problems. The CSB is written in typical nebulous speak in its
description
which is vague at best. However, the main issue seems to be
engines
running hot (excessive heat as they put it).
I would estimate that 200 engines are involved (there are serial
numbers).
The CSB requires a borescope check of the engines "within 25
hours or at
the next 100 hour or annual inspection". And, then at each 100
hours
thereafter until the pistons are changed out for whatever reason. They
are
looking for "excessive heat indications or cracking" in a
specific area on
the piston.
I was never notified, so much for being registered with Continental as
the
engine owner.
If you are affected, PLEASE send me an email off list so I can keep
track
of how many of us there are. As far as I am concerned it is
unacceptable
that we should have to live with a 100 check to determine if our
pistons
are cracked! The link to download the PDF is listed below.
Ed Rosiak
Super ES
http://www.tcmlink.com/serviceBulletins/index.html
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:35:22 -0400
Subject: RE: [LML] TSIO-550 Critical Service Bulletin
From: "George Braly" <gwbraly@gami.com>
"... caused some problems."
I know one Malibu owner who had the #4 piston fail in flight.
The crack
propagated from the cross-bar on the stamped "4" which was
over the
piston pin (where it is NOT supposed to be, according to the
service
bulletin.)
I have the JPI engine download file from the last flight.
The owner did a marvelous job of dead sticking the airplane from
about
16,000 feet. Wife was on board, as I recall.
The owner hired an engine expert to attend the FAA/NTSB tear down
inspection.
At the time, TCM was blaming it all on 'leaning' - - until the
engine
expert hired by the owner pointed out that the crack started at the
"4"
and went across the piston.
The owner had already ordered and installed a new engine by the time
of
the tear down inspection.
At the inspection, TCM said they had "already fixed the
problem". They
gave the owner a recent date after which the fix had been
incorporated.
The owner called his shop. The bore scoped his pistons.
His new engine
had been built before the 'fix' and had the "4" stamped over
the piston
pin, just like the failed engine. Owner was not happy.
TCM had to replace the pistons on his new engine.
Regards,
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