Club Homepage Forums Classified Ads Buy & Sell - Everything But Airplanes Cont O-200A cracked case fix

I earlier posted a question about either an engine or case as a fix for the cracked case we found on my C-150. We have learned there is an approved fix for a cracked case involving welding the crack. That is all I know about the process; except should the case pass all other checks the case is given a yellow tag. My IA says there is an engine shop in TUL that can do this. Anyone have information this procedure?

I thought that Divco [divcoinc.com] was the only shop approved to repair cases.
I could be wrong though.

Here you go http://www.divcoinc.com

You ship them the case and they fix it. Yes, the engine does have to be disassembled.

Roger,
Repairing a case is a specialized repair, and only Divco has the approval to do this. It is possible that your cracked case is non-repairable. Send a photograph to Divco to find out if repair is an option. Otherwise, you will need to replace the case with new or a serviceable one you can have "overhauled".
Now is the time to sit back and take a deep breath, and evaluate your options.
To repair the case, the engine has to be completely disassembled.
The current time on your engine and cylinders may make doing a major overhaul a prudent decision. Also, if you did decide to do a major overhaul, using a "repaired" case might not be wise, and a new or good replacement the better choice.

To all, thank you. Good information. My IA and I are meeting at noon CST to decide what we are going to do. Information has been coming in from all over about this. Wednesday we both agreed that looking for a used engine is not a good option and that we needed a good case. We agreed to think about it and make a decision Friday at lunch. Then the information about the ability to weld the crack came up. Yesterday my IA stated that he does have a case and that also plan into what happens. I will print this thread and have it at our discussion and then post what we have decided.

BTW- just out of curiosity what is the TT/SMOH on your engine?

Comparing apples to oranges... I had a case crack on my Lycoming IO-360, not that unusual, what with 200 horses stuffed in one stable. I looked into having the cracked welded by Divco. Based upon the photos I sent they said it likely could be welded.

However, perusing old emails on the Cardinal website showed that several people had their welded cases crack again within a few hundred hours. Now, I don't know if it was due to poor repairs, or this engine was prome to cracking and not a good candidate, or what. But it certainly gave me pause. In the end I lucked into a first-run overhaul engine.

Good thing, too. It turned out my cracked case had been overhauled several times already, and the deck height was too low to machine again. This probably explains why it cracked, too - too many fatigue cycles.

So, in my opinion, I would opt for the case from your mechanic as opposed to welding yours, especially if it has lower time.

Which brings up another point - it can be very difficult to determine how much time is on a case (or any other engine component). The only thing the engine logbook really tracks is the data-plate. Everything else can be swapped with no continuing record of time.

Exactly.
Aircraft engine cases are castings, and weld repairs are a coin toss at best.

Which, in my view, would make Bengie's case very attractive (were I wearing Rogers shoes).

Odds are very high that his first run, 2000 TT hours case, would be a prime candidate to be positioned to go another 2,000 hours via the overhaul process.

That would have a high value to me.


Jim

All offers considered, some accepted....