Hi everyone,
I have a Kitfox Model IV with a Rotax 912UL engine. Back in October, my engine seized in flight a couple of minutes after takeoff. Fortunately I was able to execute a successful forced approach. I had enough altitude that I was able to perform a 120 degree turn and land on the grass beside an inactive runway with no damage to myself or the airframe.
The engine supposedly had about 350 hours on it, but it had no logbooks so I am taking the previous owners word for it. From what I can see it is a very early 912 engine with the old style ignition module.
I had done a normal preflight inspection and runup, and checked that the oil and coolant levels were good before starting the engine. During the runup there were no signs of a problem and the coolant and oil temperatures were normal. Before the engine seized, the engine got louder and the RPM dropped.
I now have some time to start disassembling the engine to try and figure out what went wrong. I realize I may be better off just buying a new engine than repairing this one, but I would still like to know what caused the failure.
How should I go about trying to find out what went wrong? I guess the first step would be to pull the cylinders and check for cylinder/piston/valve damage and if I don't find anything wrong I guess I will have to dig deeper into the bottom end.
Once I find out which parts are damaged I will take some pictures and post them here and ask for your help in trying to determine what caused the failure.
Thanks,
Randy Engler
I have a Kitfox Model IV with a Rotax 912UL engine. Back in October, my engine seized in flight a couple of minutes after takeoff. Fortunately I was able to execute a successful forced approach. I had enough altitude that I was able to perform a 120 degree turn and land on the grass beside an inactive runway with no damage to myself or the airframe.
The engine supposedly had about 350 hours on it, but it had no logbooks so I am taking the previous owners word for it. From what I can see it is a very early 912 engine with the old style ignition module.
I had done a normal preflight inspection and runup, and checked that the oil and coolant levels were good before starting the engine. During the runup there were no signs of a problem and the coolant and oil temperatures were normal. Before the engine seized, the engine got louder and the RPM dropped.
I now have some time to start disassembling the engine to try and figure out what went wrong. I realize I may be better off just buying a new engine than repairing this one, but I would still like to know what caused the failure.
How should I go about trying to find out what went wrong? I guess the first step would be to pull the cylinders and check for cylinder/piston/valve damage and if I don't find anything wrong I guess I will have to dig deeper into the bottom end.
Once I find out which parts are damaged I will take some pictures and post them here and ask for your help in trying to determine what caused the failure.
Thanks,
Randy Engler
