The death of the A-65?

Michael Horowitz wrote:

As I understand it, you can grind a scored shaft once and install
oversized bearings, but that's the limit of grinding, then you need a
replacement.

I believe I"ve seen (sometime in the distant past) cranks offered for
sale, but I may be mistaken. Are they getting hard to find?

As the A-65 is no longer made, what does this mean for the fleet of
A-65 owners? Do they swap it out for an engine that is still
supported? - Mike



You could likely have a crank custom made for an experimental, but I'm
guessing the cost would be high even by aircraft standards.

Matt

Most airboaters up here use Lycomings of the O-320 and O-360 variety.

What's wrong with 1930's technology? It's time proven. I'm not saying
there isn't room for improvements, but look at all the horsing around
people have had to do to get an auto engine into an airframe. Blow a
(water) hose and you're cooked...In aviation, there is something to be
said for simplicity. My A-65 or my C-85-8 never had an alternator or
starter fail to date. Top that with ANY modern auto engine

Lights and radios don't make airplanes fly...



Bret Ludwig wrote:

Scott wrote:

Because they're TOO GOOD to waste them in a genset, irrigation pump or
welder.


ROTFLMAO!!!!!

Actually I'm having you on. Continentals were used in many military
gensets and GPUs. There was a flat twin using C-85 jugs that was
produced in large numbers for a dedicated Army radio genset giving B+
and heater voltages for a specific transmitter truck and a O-470
derivative used in a genset used by MASH units. Lycs were used in lots
of ground ramp applications and in an airdroppable rescue boat. They
were all pains in the ass and Uncle Sugar got rid of them forthwith.
Liquid cooled en-bloc engines were far more reliable and that's why
split crankcases and bolt on one piece jugs left general purpose engine
design circa 1925 or so.


Why do you say the C-85 should be reproduced rather than the A-65? Lots
of restored "antiques" used the A-65...Luscombe, Aeronca, Taylorcraft,
Piper, etc.

If you were "going to build a homebuilt" as you say, which indicates to
me you haven't or aren't planning to build a homebuilt, why are you
hanging around a homebuilt newsgroup, offering advice on something you
have no experience with? Ever fly behind an A-65 (or in front of one if
it's a pusher)?


I think I soloed behind a 75 that started out as a 65. I worked in
FBO's and once for about three weeks in the Cessna Pawnee Ave. plant. I
quit because I literally couldn't take the heat-there was no A/C and it
was August in Wichita. Wichita was the most depressing piece of ****
fundamentalist-ridden town I have ever lived in my life, besides, no
one flies. 90% of the production staff not only weren't pilots, they
had never been up in the plane they built and had no desire to do so.

Most of the aircraft with 65s originally later got upgrades and many
got electrical systems and engins with generator and starter pads. Then
people got stupid and tore out the wiring, and reconverted them to the
original configuration so they lost lights and radios and could fly
around like an ultralight. If the airframe is certificated or STC'd to
take the 85 you are dumb to forfeit the additional horsepower, unless
you have a source for cheap "white gas" the 65 would burn and the later
ones wouldn't. As you know the 65, 75, 85 and up are largely the same
engine. I think the 65 has lower compression pistons.

Some airplanes are really best off with this engine, but designing a
new one around one today is no more sensible than using an OX-5, or a
Gnome-Rhone rotary radial, or even the pretty reliable six cylinder
Ranger. Do you drive a Model A flathead four powered car to work every
day?

Are the airboat guys still running these Continentals?

"Scott" wrote

Blow a (water) hose and you're cooked

Bull. Replace your hoses every five years, and you will never blow a hose.

Even if you do, you can make enough power to do and emergency landing. You
may have cooked the engine, but they will run for quite a while without
water.

I don't see auto engines blowing a jug, or breaking a rod, or hanging a
valve at low hours, like lycosauruses.

There is no reason for all of the engine out situations that airplane
engines have, IMO.
--
Jim in NC

My point was simplicity. It doesn't get much simpler than an A-65.
I've heard of auto engines blowing rods through the block...I've heard
of auto engines burning off a valve head (equivalent of blowing a
jug)...I've heard of stuck valves...yes, changing things like hoses and
belts can prevent a failure down the road, but face it, **** happens to
airplane engines and auto engines. If you fly or drive long enough, I
bet either has an equal chance to leave you walking at some time in your
career.


Morgans wrote:
"Scott" wrote


Blow a (water) hose and you're cooked


Bull. Replace your hoses every five years, and you will never blow a hose.

Even if you do, you can make enough power to do and emergency landing. You
may have cooked the engine, but they will run for quite a while without
water.

I don't see auto engines blowing a jug, or breaking a rod, or hanging a
valve at low hours, like lycosauruses.

There is no reason for all of the engine out situations that airplane
engines have, IMO.

"Scott" wrote in message
...
My point was simplicity. It doesn't get much simpler than an A-65.
I've heard of auto engines blowing rods through the block...I've heard
of auto engines burning off a valve head (equivalent of blowing a
jug)...I've heard of stuck valves...yes, changing things like hoses and
belts can prevent a failure down the road, but face it, **** happens to
airplane engines and auto engines. If you fly or drive long enough, I
bet either has an equal chance to leave you walking at some time in your
career.


If you have heard of these things happening, I would ask at how many miles,
and what abuse had been given to the engine, like no oil, not enough oil
changes, over revving, and what kind of engine?
--
Jim in NC

http://www.datatown.com/chrysler/

"Some of these engines [BMW] failed catastrophically, with punctured
blocks and huge clouds of burnt oil and coolant pouring from the engine
compartment. Based on my careful reading of the one-hundred failures to
date, at least 13% of documented failures posed a serious hazard." as
read on the following website: http://yoy.com/yoy/auto/m3_failwhat.shtml

"Buyers should stay away from bargain-priced new and used minivans that
require frequent and costly repairs. Chief among these are Chrysler
minivans, Ford Windstars, GM front-drives, and the Mercury
Villager/Nissan Quest. Chrysler models had engine, drivetrain,
electrical and fuel system, AC, brake, and body deficiencies galore.
Windstars are noted for engine, automatic transmission, brake, steering,
suspension, and fuel system failures. The newest Quests are selling
poorly and use many failure-prone Altima/Maxima parts. VW Campers are a
good idea poorly executed. These minivans are nicely laid-out, but they
aren't reliable and servicing is practically non-existent. Plus, they
are costly." from: http://www.lemonaidcars.com/update.htm

If I'm reading you correctly, are you saying that poor maintenance is
the cause of all or most auto engine failures and that airplane engine
failures are caused by engine design problems?



Morgans wrote:

"Scott" wrote in message
...

My point was simplicity. It doesn't get much simpler than an A-65.
I've heard of auto engines blowing rods through the block...I've heard
of auto engines burning off a valve head (equivalent of blowing a
jug)...I've heard of stuck valves...yes, changing things like hoses and
belts can prevent a failure down the road, but face it, **** happens to
airplane engines and auto engines. If you fly or drive long enough, I
bet either has an equal chance to leave you walking at some time in your
career.



If you have heard of these things happening, I would ask at how many miles,
and what abuse had been given to the engine, like no oil, not enough oil
changes, over revving, and what kind of engine?

I don't see auto engines blowing a jug, or breaking a rod, or hanging a
valve at low hours, like lycosauruses.
There is no reason for all of the engine out situations that airplane
engines have, IMO.

I see way more cars at the side of the road than I hear of
airplanes having engine failures, even with making allowance for the
many times more cars than airplanes in operation. Aircraft engines fail
mostly for the following reasons:
1. Out of gas. Not an engine fault, is it?
2. Carb ice. That's a pilot's mistake, not the engine's.
3. Low oil pressure. Usually due to running out of oil, either because
it wasn't checked and topped up, or because the engine wasn't looked
after and it leaked out through the same leaks it had been leaking from
for several years, or through a blown oil hose that had been in service
for 28 years. They are 5-year items.
4. Mechanical failure. This come is a wide variety of expensive noises,
and most of them have to do with poor maintenance, or infrequent
flying, which causes corrosion internally that leads to the failure.
Mechanical failure is actually relatively rare. It's the first three
causes above that bring most airplanes down where engines are
concerned. Remember that most crashes are weather or pilot induced and
have nothing to do with the engine at all.
As far as blowing jugs or breaking rods or hanging valves: Try
making an auto conversion run at 75 power for a few hours and see what
begins to happen. They weren't designed for that, and the guys who
successfuly convert and run them for several hundred hours have had to
get around a LOT of problems.

Dan (Aircraft Maintenance Engineer, homebuilder, and Flight
instructor, with installing a Soob in GlaStar experience)

Thanks, Dan. Well stated. I agree. I am NOT against auto engines in
airplanes (I think Jim Morgan may have thought that is what I was
saying). I feel like you do, it IS possible, but most of the articles I
have read sound like it took some dinking around to get everything
working acceptably, but it eventually was done.

Scott



wrote:
I don't see auto engines blowing a jug, or breaking a rod, or hanging a
valve at low hours, like lycosauruses.
There is no reason for all of the engine out situations that airplane
engines have, IMO.


I see way more cars at the side of the road than I hear of
airplanes having engine failures, even with making allowance for the
many times more cars than airplanes in operation. Aircraft engines fail
mostly for the following reasons:
1. Out of gas. Not an engine fault, is it?
2. Carb ice. That's a pilot's mistake, not the engine's.
3. Low oil pressure. Usually due to running out of oil, either because
it wasn't checked and topped up, or because the engine wasn't looked
after and it leaked out through the same leaks it had been leaking from
for several years, or through a blown oil hose that had been in service
for 28 years. They are 5-year items.
4. Mechanical failure. This come is a wide variety of expensive noises,
and most of them have to do with poor maintenance, or infrequent
flying, which causes corrosion internally that leads to the failure.
Mechanical failure is actually relatively rare. It's the first three
causes above that bring most airplanes down where engines are
concerned. Remember that most crashes are weather or pilot induced and
have nothing to do with the engine at all.
As far as blowing jugs or breaking rods or hanging valves: Try
making an auto conversion run at 75 power for a few hours and see what
begins to happen. They weren't designed for that, and the guys who
successfuly convert and run them for several hundred hours have had to
get around a LOT of problems.

Dan (Aircraft Maintenance Engineer, homebuilder, and Flight
instructor, with installing a Soob in GlaStar experience)

Dan Thomas wrote:

I don't see auto engines blowing a jug, or breaking a rod, or hanging a
valve at low hours, like lycosauruses.
There is no reason for all of the engine out situations that airplane
engines have, IMO.
As far as blowing jugs or breaking rods or hanging valves: Try
making an auto conversion run at 75 power for a few hours and see what
begins to happen. They weren't designed for that, and the guys who
successfuly convert and run them for several hundred hours have had to
get around a LOT of problems.


For what it's worth regarding catastrophic auto engine failure, in May of
this year I got to experience it first hand in my car. Driving down the
freeway at 70mph, I heard a God awful noise and realized it was my car. I
managed to nurse it across 3 or 4 lanes of the freeway to the shoulder. As I
coasted to a stop and turned off the engine, steam started pouring out. I
popped the hood (yes, a very dumb idea in hindsight given the potentially
scalding coolant that was loose) and saw that the engine was so hot it had
melted through a rubber emissions control hose containing fuel/air and
ignited. There were also flames down at my engine block. I was able to get
them out without hosting a car-b-que on the 91 freeway.

What happened? The engine threw a rod which punched a quarter sized hole in
the side front of my engine, donating all of my oil to the freeway below.
Perhaps some of it sprayed up on the hot exhaust manifold and caught fire -
I'm not sure what the source of fuel for the fire was. I didn't especially
care at the time. The failure also caused my radiator fan to throw a blade
(plastic) into my radiator, cracking it open.

This was in my 1991 Geo Prizm. (Ooooh...ahhhh!) It had 156,000+ miles on it
and had been used since '91 to drive LA freeways and side streets on a daily
basis. The last two years of its life were spent going from my house to my
college 35 miles away 5 days a week on freeways. So obviously, it was
pushing the end of its useful life and had been driven hard. It was meant to
be an economy car.

Maybe the failure was a fluke, maybe it was perfectly reasonable given the
car's life. But when I hear about Geo conversions for homebuilts now, I tend
to look the other way. Sure it can be done, but it was enough to keep me
away from them.


-Tony Goetz

"Scott" wrote

If I'm reading you correctly, are you saying that poor maintenance is
the cause of all or most auto engine failures and that airplane engine
failures are caused by engine design problems?

Long to short, Yes. That said, there are many engines that have a much
better track record for reliability. The Chevy 4.3, Chevy 5.7, ford V-6,
with 4.2, (or something like that) Ford 351 come to mind, off the top of my
head.

When these engines get 80,000 miles, (or perhaps 1500 hours would be close)
the possibility of catastrophic failure begins to rise. Time for a cheap,
simple overhaul, when compared to the lycosarus and it's ilk.

That said, I realize the devil is in the details, with the PRSU, and other
systems having problems, without good engineering.

The Lycosarus has problems, IMHO, because of it's ultra emphasis on light
weight, and many other problems due to faulty parts. (seems like there is
always a bolt, or crankshaft, or something with an AD on it) Add on, the
ever present problems of finding truly qualified people to work on them.

On the "old reliable" airplane engines,carbs freeze up without precise
procedures being followed, magnetos fail, heads get too hot and cause valve
problems, or warped or cracked heads, detonation destroys pistons, jugs blow
off.

Modern auto engines don't have these problems, due to (IMHO) the fact that
they are produced in such large numbers, and some are raced. With a backup
ignition and electrical system, they keep running. Don't even start with
the old "auto engines are not built to run that hard" stuff, because on
boats, and airboats, and some airplanes, they do, without catastrophic
engine failures.

It is time for people to get modern engine's installation details worked
out, and use them. Design a system; buy some of it, and engineer the rest.
Test the hell out of it while on the ground. Put it in a plane and fly it.
Some are doing this, with varied results, but usually the engine itself
failing is not the problem.

Such an undertaking is not for everyone. I hope I get a chance to do it.

Soapbox off. g
--
Jim in NC