Alcun Atirutan BBS

A camshaft has pitting on my only remaining airplane. It's a Lycoming IO-360. The cost to repair is $12,800 + shipping. An overhaul would be $24k and a factory reman $44k.
#aviation

@avia For just a camshaft? Steep.

@kazriko I don't know if you know about it, but a piston engine of a typical small airplane looks like a Subaru engine -- only unfortunately the camshaft is in the middle, like on a Chevy Small Block. So, in order to change a camshaft the engine needs to be split in two halves alone the middle. And when a Lycoming engine is split, factory manual calls for a replacement of a large number of expensive parts.

As it happens, I had to have the engine split two years ago, when I had the case crack. They disassembled it completely, then assembled all parts into the new case, for the total of about $11k. The new case was $1k, labor $3k, and mandatory replacement parts - $7k. That is what we're looking at again. The camshaft is probably $500 or so. They also quoted tappets and pistons, because I managed to scour one.

@avia Ahhh, that makes more sense then, I thought just the camshaft would be 12k. But yeah, labor on things like that is a hassle unless you're able to do it yourself.

@kazriko Did you miss the part where the mandatory replacement parts were 2.5 times more expensive than the labor?

@avia Yes, though it's still not the camshaft so it's something that I wasn't figuring into the calculations. There's a channel that I follow that used a Subaru CVT valve replacement as an example, and said that you should always replace the entire valve body instead of just the failed valve, because of all the other costs of taking the CVT apart, you don't want to pay those costs twice, so just replace everything that is a potential wear item. IE the entire valve body.

@avia The costs being both the labor, and the new friction enhancing fluid that the CVT needs to operate.

@flyguy Did you have a repair option and if yes, why did you choose overhaul?