Hi Kelly,

I finally got around to taking apart my gear box the rest of the way (removing the prop shaft.  It was not easy because it had frozen in there pretty well.  There is bearing around where the oil comes into the box.  It is a split bearing.  The old that flows aft (away from the prop) lubes the aft part of that bearing then flow into the main gallery and  bathes the planet gears and the rest of the gear drive.  

The part that was seized was the aft part of that bearing.  When it seized the prevented oil from flowing aft into the main gallery.  

So as far as fixing the lube for the upper planet gears, I don't think that we have any evidence that there is a issue.  The damage to my planet gears was probably more from oil starvation causing overheating..

As to the reason for the bearing failure, your guess is as good as mine.  Very high duty use with continuous gyroscopic loads and possibly less than ideal oil flow are the likely culprits.  

It is very likely that we will never know.  I continue to have no second thoughts about flying with the RD-1B, though I likely will not race my plane again.  Partly because of the gear box issue but mostly because I don't feel comfortable going that much faster than Vne without making some serious mods to my airframe.  Wouldn't mind having a nice rotary powered lancair to race though  :-)

-- 
David Leonard

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

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:58 PM, Kelly Troyer <keltro@att.net> wrote:

Dave,

 Any further thoughts about the cause and fix for the lube problem you encountered with your RD1B

at Reno beyond having a dedicated oil supply to the Redrive not shared by the Turbo ?............Any

input from Tracy about the problem ?................

 

 

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: Saturday, November 26, 2011 12:41 PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Plugs not for Airplanes..

Funny thing,

I was just installing a new set of spark plugs and noticed that there is a set of installation pictures on the stock NGT spark plug..  the last picture is a big red X through a picture of an airplane.  Specifically, we should apparently not use these spark plugs with motor gliders or ultralights.  So I think regular experimental airplanes should be OK.  :-)

--
David Leonard

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