JettPilot

My Feedback: (6)

I used to be a die hard O.S. engine fan, but had 4 of my O.S. engines rapidly peel thier cheap nickel cylender plating like in the picture below [:@] After my engines were dead I read in the RCU magazine engine clinic about the this common problem with O.S. engines and the cheap nickel plating they use. Since being a member of this forum I have also seen a bunch of people here complain about the same thing. Personally I will never buy another O.S engine [:'(]

My question now is, how many of you guys have had one of thier O.S. engines peel its cheap nickel plating or seen your friends O.S. engine peel its plating ?

NM2K

My Feedback: (14)

The vast majority of my OS engines have been ringed. Obviously, there is no liner peeling problem with a ringed piston running in a steel cylinder. These engine run just fine - thank you.

In fact, my OS.32F non ringed engine ran just fine even when the liner had peeled. I didn't even bother fixing it. It ran great.

While today's OS engines are not the same as yesterday's OS engines, they are still good engines the majority of the time. Are they worth the price they fetch? That is up to every individual. I just bought a couple of .91 Surpass engines. One pumped, the other not.

Lately I have been gaining interest in classic pattern flying with the SPA and the newly emerging BPA. It is a nostalgia thing for me. As a result of my classic pattern flying interest, I have been buying up old OS engines for .61 sized pattern models. Mostly the SF line, but I have managed to get my hands on a superb FSR and a good looking .61 VF.

The VF utilizes OS's non ringed piston/liner architecture. I never noticed my original VF peeling and I did put some time on it during the several years I owned it. If the liner is bad, I'll try to locate a Shadel set up for it, or maybe even a used, but operable, stock piston and liner. But if it is turning up and running like my old VF, I won't be in a particular hurry to replace the piston/liner. This is just a hobby for me.

Remember, not all OS non ringed engines had a peeling liner. In the USA, the distributor gave the customer a hard time and denied there was a problem during the FX debacle. I doubt that they would do the same thing today if one's liner began to peel. People do learn from their mistakes - sometimes.

Hobbsy

My Feedback: (102)

No.

downunder

I can't say yes or no to this, at best only a maybe. A friend of mine asked me to run in his LA40 and I've never felt an engine quite as weird as his was. Sometimes it would flick over nicely then suddenly go very tight, so tight I didn't want to force it. Then all of a sudden it'd free up again. I managed to get it started once and it seemed to run fine but even after that run it continued with its weird behaviour. I wanted to open it up for a look but he decided to send it back under warranty. It came back about a week later with a note saying they'd run it and couldn't find anything wrong so they didn't dismantle it. But the returned engine felt totally different to what was sent off. I know they were covering up something but what it was I don't know.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

I have had three 46 FX's for a few years and neither has peeled.

For three years I flew at a 46 FX field where thats all people used and none of them ever peeled.

rajul

My Feedback: (58)

46FX and 61FX. No issues at all. Never heard of other users at my field having problems either

bigedmustafa

My Feedback: (2)

I own an O.S. .46 FX and two .46 FXi motors and have flown them regularly for the last two seasons. I haven't experienced or even seen peeling liner problems of any kind since I started flying a couple of years ago.

I have heard of the problem, but believed it to be an issue on older O.S. engines that O.S. Max has since corrected on their new products. With the 3-year warranty and the very fast customer service provided by Hobby Services (the O.S. repair contact here in the U.S.) for warranty repairs, I doubt that having one of my motors peel a lining would cause me to quit using O.S. products anyway.

The engines are reliable, easy to tune, powerful, and tough. I've never found an engine I like better than O.S. Max. I might be hesitant to buy a used O.S. engine that was of the type that frequently suffered from peeling linings, however.

XTOL

I have not seen this in any recent OS engines but
I have an ABC OS 61 SF thats severely peeled.
It happened during break in on the very first tank.

Id like to find a ringed sleeve/piston set to rebuild it one day.

Mike Hammer

Dr Nitro

I've had several peel (5), usually wtihin the first gallon.
I have not bought a new OS's since then (nor will I ever again buy a new OS) so I have no experience with the post FX/SX series engines.

Too many good engines out there to be messing around with hit or miss quality, especially at the price of an OS. For a two stroke, I'll take the MVVS, Webra, Enya, Thunder Tiger and Fox long berfore anything OS markets.

MyWay

The SX and Ax series engines so far have proved to be very good engines with no peeling issues like in the past.

JPMacG

My Feedback: (2)

I have owned only one FX and it peeled.

wjvail

My Feedback: (3)

I wonder how many people have had a liner peel and never new it. I've had several peel and they ran pretty good. Had I not looked for it I might not have known. When I mentioned this at the field, flying mates have said with arrogance and pride that THEY never had an OS liner peel. After looking at their engine, theirs had badly peeled and didn't know it.

Bill Vail

JettPilot

My Feedback: (6)

Looking at the poll numbers right now, we have 10 peeled, and 4 with friends that have peeled, in comparison to 14 that have never peeled. That represents a 50 % failure rate [:@]

There are also all those people that had it happen, throw thier engines away, and never say a word. I never complained about my OS engines failing for years until the internet became available to share our information.


If a car maker or just about any other product had a 50 % failure rate, the manufacturer would be sued out of business and there would be a federal investigation for fraud. In the grand scheme of things, so few people use glow engines that stuff like this can happen and there are never consequences for the manufacturer.

JettPilot

barto

I had an 40 FX peel it's liner. It was caused by using LHS fuel, with water in it sadly. This caused the ball bearings to rust and this made scratches in the liner, which then peeled.

Since then I stopped using LHS fuel and I now use fuel mixed by our club, with good oil (graupner titan). Never had any problems again on any of my engines. On top of that, after changing the ball bearings on my 40 FX, the peeling stopped and the engine still runs fine.

Don't know if with others the peeling was also caused by bad fuel.

Bart

proptop

My Feedback: (8)

I'm flying an early .46FX that is peeling...it was given to me...the guy said "it feels funny when I turn it over". He had never run it...
Before ever running it, I took the head and backplate off and didn't see anything abnormal, so I decided to just use it, last fall. Did the ABC/ABN break-in procedure of slightly rich 2 stroking too...not too rich not too lean.
When it's cold, it squeaks it's got so much pinch...but when it's hot, it has very little compression. Pulled the head just the other day for a check...and it's still peeling (hasn't healed itself ) right above the exh. port.

Got an FP .60 as a gift...with a peeled liner...guy didn't know what was wrong with it, and gave it to me.

Our club's former pres. had 2 of his .77 ducted fan engines do it back several years ago...

daven

My Feedback: (1)

Count me down for at least 10 OS engines over the past 8 years with never a pealed liner.

Great engines in my opinion, we race them locally and run them hard. NO ONE up here has had a problem in the past 8 years that I'm aware of and we are a large group of racers that run them lean often.

I don't know if its the fuel oil content, or some other issue, but they have been great up here.

rajul

My Feedback: (58)

Daven, which OS engine sizes do you run?

Kweasel

My Feedback: (29)

I won't complain too much because all the peeled liners were on well worn engines that were flown from unpaved runways.

DarZeelon

Yes.

NM2K

My Feedback: (14)

----------------


Are you of the opinion that it is still going on?

Yes, I did read about the AX peeling. But it is how Hobby Services handles it that is of concern to me.

Still, I like ringed engines better than AB? engines anyway, so that is what I buy if given a choice.

Matthew Allen

I think a thread like this is fairly unhelpful unless it tries to establish some common factors between the engines that have peeled their liners, and those that haven't.

Obviously, it's hard to tell if someone's leaned their engine excessively, but it would be interesting to know what fuels were used with liners that peeled, and whether they are at all different to the fuels used by those that didn't peel.

Matthew

barto

I used coolpower with my 40 FX.

Now I use fuel made by the club using graupner titan oil, no problems since

Bart

Hobbsy

My Feedback: (102)

Ed, I only have 3 LAs, 2 .46s and a .65, all broken in by the Dar method, one .46 and the .65 are converted to Diesel, since a Diesel does not get hot when run lean, in fact your supposed to run them as lean as possible, I don't think that will ever happen to any of them. When you consider the sheer numbers of OS AB? engines out there we're not getting anywhere near a complete picture here. I have a Fox .74 ABC, a Webra AB? .91, there are probably hundreds of times as many OS AB?s.

JettPilot

My Feedback: (6)

We are getting a very good picture here Hobbsy. It does not matter how many engines are out there, when more than 50 % report peeled liners, it does not matter how many are sold, 50 % is a huge number of failures, that tells you something. The complaints about O.S. engines are always the SAME problem, not a wide range of proplems as you would expect when many thousands of a product are sold. When nearly every complaint about O.S. is due to a peeled liner, and not a boad range of problems, that to tells you in no uncertain terms what the problem is.

Its just a matter if one is willing to listen or not.

JettPilot

Cyclic Hardover

My Feedback: (3)

That liner peeling has been brought up here countless times for years. yes it happens and sometimes it don't.