Radial Engine Tune-up Page 2 Air Tractor, Inc. Radial Engine Tune-up By Dale Hurst (Reprint by permision of Aviation Mechanics Journal magazine) While some people believe that the radial engine is as extinct as the dodo bird, don't you believe it. The total number now in service is really quite large and growing at a rate of ap- proximately 1,000 per year. The most common types you are likely to run into are the Pratt & Whitney R-985 (450 HP) and R-1340 (600 HP). These engines power a varlety of airplanes - D-18 Twin Beeches, AT-6's, a whole fleet of ag airplanes, and even a few helicopters. Most A&P’s don't seem to like to work on these engines. It may be because they don't know anything about them, or maybe that they are big, dirty, and leak oil. Or it may be because the airplanes theyre hooked onto generally smell bad. Whatever the reason, Pratt & Whit- neys aren't really that hard to work on. Any inspection and 100 hour service should start with a run up. This is the first place that you'll find a difference between a round engine and t's flat counterpart. Pratt's, like most round engines, have rather loose clearances. When an engine is shut down, it's fairly easy for oll to leak past the rings and into the cylinder heads of the lower cylinders. This can produce a classic case of hydraulic lock. The same thing can happen if the pilot forgets to lock the primer after the last start. While hydraulic locks aren't too common, the results of one can ruin an engine. Bent rods, broken pistons, cracked cylinders, and many other bad things can happen if you try to start a hydraulic locked engine. Before starting any radial engine, check to make sure the magneto switch is offeven then don'ttrust it) and pullthe engine through. One blade for each cylinder is enough. Ifyou find an oil lock, it can be cleared by pulling the spark plugs. Pull the engine through enough times for the oil to be expelled. If you find a fuel lock, you've got more problems. The primer lines are hooked to the upper cylinders. That means the whole engine is full of fuel. All of the cylinders, the crankcase, the sump, everything! It take about half'a day to drain everything and dry out the inside of the engine. ‘When you start an engine after a fuel lock, have a fire extinguisher handy and stand away from the exhaust stack. The biggest fire you ever saw is going to come out of there, Anyway, after getting a round engine running, don’t pull any power out of it until the oil temperature is up. There are several reasons for this, like valve clearance and piston clear- ance, but the main reason 1s blower bearings. ‘These engines have an internal gear driven centrifugal supercharger that runs at 10 to 1. When the engine 1s tuming 1,000 RPM, the blower’s turning up 10,000 RPM. Most P&W’s use grade 120 (60 welght) ofl. When t's cold, this stuff is like glue. With 40°C oll, blower bearings can only get about 1/3 as much ofl as they get with 60°C oil. The frictional horsepower on these bearings is directly affected by ofl temperature. This friction is what causes Z , On an installed engine, the main oll screen may be a little hard to get at. Don't bypass it. Remove and clean at every inspection.Alr Tractor, Inc. them to get hot. For example, at takeoff power (R-1340) the blower is turning 22,500 RPM. With 60°C oil the frictional horsepower on the front blower bearing is about 3 HP. With 40°C ofl temperature the friction horsepower jumps to around 10 HP, and with 21°C oil it has over thirty frictional horsepower. Cold oil can kill a blower bearing by overheating it just slicker than a whistle. When you see a pilot takeoff with cold oil, have a word with him, because if his engine lunches itself out there somewhere, he'll be looking for somebody else to blame, rather than, himself. ‘While still on the subject of oll, always start an engine that has a counter-weighted propeller in the decrease RPM, or increase pitch position. Whatever the quadrant says, just pull the prop handle all the way back for starting, This keeps the master rod bearing and blower bearings from starving for ofl while the propeller cylinder fills up. After oll pressure is established the prop control can be moved forward and the engine run at 800 to 1,000 RPM until the ofl warms up toat least 40°C. While it's running at this speed make a magneto function check. Operate the mag switch just like in any othermagnetocheck, only also go to OFF momentarily. If you do it quickly, you can tell if it works without getting backfire. ‘After the oll is warm, go ahead and run the engine up to 1,700 to 2,100 RPM, whatever you feel comfortable with. On some installations the tail of the airplane will come off the ground at around 1,900 to 2,000, so watch it ‘When you check the mags at this speed, they should have between 50 to 75 RPM drop and anything that exceeds 100 RPM requires attention. The difference between the right and left magnetos shouldn't exceed 50 RPM on a good running engine. Ifyou ever come across an engine that doesn't have anymag drop, it doesn't mean you have a good engine. It means you've got a bad wire or a bad mag switch. A radial engine will always have a mag drop. ‘After checking the mags out, slow the engine down to about 1,600 RPM and pull the prop handle all the way back (counter-weighted props). When the prop comes back as far as it will go, leave the prop handle back and slow the engine down to around 600 RPM to cool things Radial Engine Tune-up Page 3 down, Aftera minute orsogoahead and shut the engine down by pulling the mixture into idle cutoff, When the prop stops remember to shut offthe mag witch and turnoff the fuel valve, and you're ready to start work. While you're putting the oil drain bucket under the engine, take a look at the cylinder on the propeller. It should be all the way back in Positive high pitch with the blades against the stops. Ifthe prop cylinder moved forward during shutdown that means the governor linkage isn't adjusted properly. The linkage isn't letting the governor go to positive high pitch. With the prop handle ll the wayback, the governor's, instead, set for some minimum RPM (like 400 or 300 or whatever). As the engine coasts through this RPM during shutdown, the governor moves the prop cylinder out trying to maintain it's mint- mum RPM. Asa result, ifa prop seal should fail in fight and the pilot pulls the handle into positive high pitch, the oil flow won't stop. Hell just chug along until he runs out of engine ol, On Pratt & Whitney's. being dry-sump engines, you have to drain the oll tank sepa- rately. This is usually done through a "Y" valve The front sump drains the rocker system while the rear one drains the power casi Screen the oll to check for particles. Almost anything found in these drains is serious.Radial Engine Tune-up Page 4 that's safetied with a big cotter pin. Like most radials, P&W's have three engine Grains, The main sump is the one that has the pressure oil screen. It's located by looking up from the bottom between the carburetor and the engine. The cap s about 2 1/2 inches or so in diameter and can sometimes be a real chore to get at and even worse, to get out. Sometimes you'll get one that's so tight you just know you're going to break something. When you get one of these nasty ones, don't give up and leave it in. All of the pressure oll goes through this screen. If you don't pull it you might miss some particles that would tell you that something is coming apart. ‘These screens can catch a lot of junk that might shake you up a little bit. The usual things you find will be pieces of carbon, gasket parts once in a while, a little sludge, maybe a few specks of aluminum, and a flake or two of brass. This is fairly normal ‘The abnormal things you can find are a lot of aluminum or brass, any steel, gear teeth, anything accidently dropped in the rear case during assembly, chips from the starter jaw, parts from the generator drive, and even some phenolic from the blower bearing separators. If you find any of these things, a quick phone call tothe people who did the last overhaul would be inorder. They can tell you what todo from there. The other two drains are located either on or next to the engine sump, depending on which engine you're working on. ‘The engine drain is connected to the power case. Anything that comes out of here has to come from the rods, crankcase, or cylinder and piston skirts. The rocker drain is just that. It drains the cam and cam followers, the push rods. valves, and everything associated with the valve train. Almost anything that you find in an engine drain is trouble. If you find something that is steel and looks like it came from a big ring of ‘some kind, it more than likely did. Occasionally, anR-1340willshuck the very rim of the cylinder skirt that goes up inside the case. It looks almost like a piece of piston ring and generally comes off of #5 cylinder. It'll be a little beat up and if the piece bounced around the crank and rods long enough to bang them up too, you've got an engine change. You generally won't find anything in the Air Tractor, Inc. rocker drain except a little water from condensa- tion, and a lot of oll. Sometimes you might find a piece of broken valve spring, or if a cam follower is going bad you might get some little semi-circular splinters from the edge of the roller. I found a 10/32 nut once. Somebody must have dropped it during assembly, because there wasn't anywhere for it to come from. It's a pretty good idea to check compression while the oll {s draining. If you find something wrong here, it could change your whole day. Everything is sobig, it pays tohave someone else hold the prop blade during a leakdown test. That 9 foot prop could smack you a good one. Start with cylinder #1. That's the one that's straight up. As you're looking at the engine from the front, the cylinders are numbered counter- cloclovise. The firing order is all the odd, then all the even, every other one. 1-3-5-7-9-2-4-6-8, Ifyou find a low reading, try rocking the prop back and forth. Sometimes that will bring a reading up a little bit. When you find a leaking valve, get out a piece of wood and a big hammer. Staking will generally fix it. IFit doesn't, and the valves have clearance, then you've got a cylinder change on hand. If you're working on an R-985, you have to make a visual inspection of the cylinder head and barrel attachment. AD78-08-07 calls out the procedures and inspection intervals. If a R- 985 cylinder must be replaced. you have to use a spare that has been ultrasonically inspected. ‘The shop doing the ultrasonic work is supposed tohave stamped "UT" and the last two numbers of the year over the intake port. Oil leakage between the head andbarrelis the subject of AD 78-08-07. The arrows indicate other areas that are subject to cracks.Air Tractor, Inc. It's a good idea to pay attention to cylinder head cracks on R-1340's also. Although the AD only worries about barrel separation, cylinders sometimes crack across the top of a head from ‘spark plug insert to spark plug insert. It's a good idea to look closely at the exhaust rocker arm castings, especially on the R-1340's, Sometimes you'll find a cracked one, Spark plugs aren't really any different on P&W's than on any other engine. The cylinders havea shrunk and screwed insert for spark plug bushings. Don't strip one out because if you do you can't helicoil it. You'll have to change the cylinder. Radial spark plugs generally give more trouble than anything else. Fouling doesn't give too much trouble unless the engine is idled on the ground for a Jong time. Plugs then have a tendency to “load up’. Running the engine up before takeoff will usually "clean them out". Dirty spark plug barrels and dirty cigarettes will give you more trouble than fouled plugs. Another little problem that comes up every once in a while is a thing called "clinkers'. Improved air filtration has stopped it to some A spark plug shell, an old 1/2-inch bolt, spring, and a plece of tool steel. These parts can make a good "clinker tool". Shape the cutter so it will not cut any aluminum inside the cylinder head. Radial Engine Tune-up Page 5 degree, but they can still cause problems. Clink- ers are caused by a combination of the lead and Junk that gasoline is made out of, and the dirt in the intake air. The silica in the dirt melts and combines with the lead to form hard globules of crud around the spark plug holes. The globules get hot and work like glow plugs during high Power output. Thiscan lead to preignition, deto- nation, and even engine failure. Ifan engine is building up clinkers, you can look through a front spark plug hole and see them around the rear plug by using gooseneck flashlight. The only solution is to make a tool to remove them. The homemade tool in the photo- graph works pretty good. Just be sure that you have the piston at T.D.C., both valves closed, and don't cut any aluminum. Most radial engines nowadays have sea- plane ignition harness leads. These rubber covered leads do a good job of keeping out most of the water, but the wiring still gets wet. Using Dow-Corning DC-4 compound in the harness nutshelps quitea bit, Sodoesyelling at the wash boy, unless you're the wash boy too. ‘Always use anti-seize, either mica or alumi- num based, on spark plugs. I think aluminum works better. Years ago there were some problems with mica based anti-seize and high altitude on some military engines; however, use something or the plugs can really weld themselves in tight. The proper torque is 300 to 360 inch-pounds. That's 25 to 30 foot-pounds. ‘Magnetos on the R-985's and R-1340's ‘come in two types - Bendix-Scintilla and Amert- can Bosch. The Bendix mag is more prone to bearing failure. It has a fourlobe camand hasto tum faster than a Bosch, which has a nine lobe cam, The best way I've ever found to check magneto cam bearings is to remove the point cover, grab the end of the cam with your hand and try hard to make it rattle. If it does rattle, change the mag because it's not long for this world. You'll also get a little rattle out of the backlash in the distributor drive gear and the distributor driven gear. The distributor driven gears are made from phenolic. Sometimes these gears will start coming apart, especially on the higher speed Bendix. Ifyou see some groundup phenolic floating around, the mag more than likely has a gear problem and must be changed. Before checking the timing, if you have aRadial Engine Tune-up Page 6 Bosch mag, take a look at the magneto switch lead. Inside the point housing is a leaf spring, When theswitch lead is removed, this leaf spring touches the magneto case and grounds the points. This is a safety feature in handling uninstalled engines. The magneto switch lead has a coil spring on the end. It is supposed to push the leaf down away from the case and complete the circuit to the switch. Sometimes the coil spring on the lead gets weak and lets the grounding leaf spring touch, or occasionally touch. Naturally, that magneto goes out, maybe completely, or maybe only intermittently. Ithappens often enough that you should look while you're in there anyway. Bendix magnetos don't have this internal ground and an uninstalled engine should be treated as if it's “hot. To check magneto timing you have to use a ‘Time-Right. To install the Time-Right, bring #1 cylinder up to Top Dead Center. Then rotate the engine backwards (clockwise) 90°, orso, tomove the piston out of the way. Arm "A" is used for both sizes of P&W's; on the 985 the hook end goes up and on the 1340 the hook end goes down, The scales are different; 24A is for the 985 and 23A is used in the 1340 model. Screw the housing in #1 front spark plug hole and install the body with the scale vertical and to the right. Move the sliding pointer to the top of its range, then rotate the engine past top dead center by 45°, or so. After returning the prop back to the starting point, align the "O" index mark on the scale with the sliding pointer. Next, return the sliding pointer to the top again and you're ready to hook up the timing light. ifyou have some spare magneto terminals, you can make wire ends that are real handy for Bosch mags. If not, you'll have to clip the wires to the points. If you do like I usually do, you'll forget toturn the mag switch on and have a hard time trying to figure out why the lights don't work right. ‘After getting that all straightened out, bump the propeller around slowly in the direction of rotation until the timing light comes on. Both magnetos should break at 25° before T:D.C. You ‘cancheck the internal timing of the magnetos by placing a straight edge on the step that's cut in the point breaker shaft. When is in perfect time, the ‘engine will be at 25° B.T.C. on #1 cylinder, both Air Tractor, Ine, magneto points will have just broke, and the straight edge on the cam step will line up with the index marks on the point cover housing, What do you do if the timing isn’t right? If you'll notice the drive coupling, you'll see the rubber coupler has notches on both sides. Some clever dude figured out that ifyou put 9 notches on one side and 20 on the other you could change the timing by rotating the coupling. So, that's what you have to do. It's a good idea to take some fingernail polish, or something, and paint a line across the complete coupling, That way, ifyou get all fouled up, at least you can go back to where you started. Advance the timing by turning the rubber coupling counter-clockwise; retard the timing by turning it clockwise. Remember to tur only the coupling, not the engine flange or the magneto flange. A valve check isn't necessary every 100 hours. It should be done at the first 100-hour inspection after overhaul and again at about the midpoint of T.B.O, ‘The first thing to do in a valve check is to remove all the rockerbox covers. Human nature being what itis, most people seem to start at the top of an engine and work down. Ifyou'll start at the bottom and work up, you won't get nearly as much oil on yourself. ‘The two rocker covers next to the sump will be a little easier to remove if you will turn the prop around until the valves are fully opened. ‘That gets most of the rocker arm out of your way. Start with #1 on T.D.C. and checic it with a 010 and a .025 inch feeler. Open up anything that's under .010 and close down anything that's over .025. Following the firing order around and when you get back to the starting position, you can go through the whole thing three more times. Or did you forget that the thing has a four lobe cam ring? It isn't possible for all four cam lobes to be ground exactly the same. By the time you get to the last go around the clearances should be pretty well even. ‘One thing to look for during a valve check is. any rocker arm that has an excessive amount of clearance. When the clearance is really exces- sive, there's a good chance you might have a push rod trying to come apart. Pay particular attention to R-1340 exhaust push rods. These particular push rods have been shot pened at overhaul, Without the added strength from shotAir Tractor, Inc. pening, exhaust push rodscan fail and shut an engine down very quickly. ‘The R-1340 has a “floating” cam bearing ar- rangement that allows the cam to shift around a bit. To compensate for this movement PAW has a valve adjusting sequence called the "“depres- sion method’, To do it this way takes more than ‘one person and a lot more work. Maybe this is the way it should be done, but the four largest round engine overhaul shops in the U.S. do it Just like the R-985, starting with #1 and working their way around. It seems to work out alright because between these four shops they doabout 80% of the round engine overhaul for the whole free world. When you were warming the engine up, one thing you should have noted was the oil pres- sure, The oil pressure range on a P&W is gener- ally 70-90 p.s.i. at cruise power with hot oil. This range can break down to 15-20 p.s.t at idle, 50- 60p.s.l. at 1,800; 60-70 p.s.t. at 2,000; 70-90 at high power. What's the problem? Well, no real problem a %Y ‘The oil pressure adjustment is located under anacorn nut on the right side. The big hex nut is a tach drive cover. ‘Radial Engine Tune-up Page 7 except most engines come out of overhaul with the ofl pressure jacked up pretty high. They assume that the pressure will drop a little after the engine runs a few hundred hours. But, generally it doesn't. ‘When the oil pressure is too high about all that happens is that the bearings can wear quicker, oil leaks show up (or get worse), and the engine can actually run a little hotter. With excess oll flow it's harder for the oil to stay put Jong enough to pick up all the heat that it should. Besides that, high pressure can make a radial engine use more of. The oil pressure adjustment is located under an acorn nut just under the tack drive on the right side of the rear case. While you're in that area, there's a dumb little thing that happens every once in a while on an R-1340 carburator. When the mixture con- trol is pulled into idle cutoff, a cam on the carburetor mixture control shaft pushes in a Uittle spring loaded plunger near the end of its movement. This plungeris the actual idle cutoff. Sometimes the shaft can rust a little bit, or oi can cause some dirt to stick to it. When the mixture is moved to rich, the plunger can fail to move back out. Depending on where it sticks, the engine can do anything from not running at, all to running sick. I mean real sick! It'll run so bad that you'll swear it has some serious electri- cal problems. little WD-40 to clean the pin, a drop of oil, and pushing the pin in and out several times with a screwdriver may save you some trouble later on, Round engines are different. They have a whole different set of problems than flat engines. They also have a different set of sounds. With a little thought and logical deduction, trouble- shooting isn't hard. About 99.9% of the time any problem with them will have a simple solution. With round engines people tend to get carried away and create problems that don't exist. ‘Speaking of sounds, a shrill high pitched whistle is either a loose carburetor (common) or an intake leak. Ahigh pitched whine in the upper part of the engine is usually either a generator bearing or a generator drive bearing. On a dual bearing generator drive it's more than likely the upper bearing, Loose valve adjustments can be heard dur-Radial Engine Tune-up Page 8 Air Tractor, Inc. ANAY9E1 carburetor (R-1340) has a small spring loaded valve actuated by the idle cutoff stop. Sometimes this valve gets corrosion on its shaft and won't return to full rich, A quick look and a little WD-40 during an inspection will prevent a problem. ing idle or coast down after shutting the engine off, They clank real loud. During cold idle, when the engine runs rough, you can sometimes hear the crankshaft dampner clank. That's generally nothing to worry about. When pulling through a cold engine, you can almost always hear an exhaust valve suck- ing air. If it's loud enough to worry about. it'll show up on a compression check. You hear a lot of people worrying about blower seals. If'an engine starts to lose a blower seal you can tell by the oil it uses. It's hourly consumption will go up drastically. I don't mean in quarts per hour either. Itl go us by several gallons. Ifa seal goes completely out, oil will pour through the engine so fast it can't burnit ll. The airplane will have ofl dripping off of it’s tail. From this list of problems, it may seem like round enginesare always having trouble. Not so! It It'll take a lot of years of working on them to run into this many problems. Airworthiness Directives Pratt & Whitney R-985 and R-1340 56-06-02 - All models Cylid. base stud failures - loose cyl. base nuts. 57-05-04 - All R-985 Compliance at overhaul. Crankshaft thread grinding 66-14-04 - All R-985 Compliance at overhaul. Replacement of riveted cam. 68-09-01 - All R-985 Compliance as indicated. Rework of crankshaft fyweights and flyweight liners. 70-10-02 - All 985, Simonds fuel injection STC #SE1-391. 76-20-01 - Superseded 78-08-07 - All R-985 Compliance as indicated. Ultrasonic cylinder head inspection.