Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

[Joel Severinghaus]

Well, the engine shop in Omaha phoned with good news, bad news about the prop strike inspection of my Continental 65. Good news: no crankshaft damage from the prop strike (thank you, my dearly departed wooden prop, for taking all the damage instead.) Bad news: several crankshaft journals worn below service limits. (But I'm not feeling too bad about all this because insurance is in effect paying for a bottom overhaul at 1600 hours.) So the crankshaft is off to Tulsa for grinding undersize and nitriding.

Which gives me another two weeks to work on replacing my crankcase baffle. You can see from the attached photos that it has seen better days, and got further bent and cracked in the nose-over. I want to replace this baffle while I have this opportunity to clean up my engine and engine compartment for the Oshkosh judges.

I've studied Bill Berle's February 2007 "cooling baffle project" thread and although his look like superior improvements, I'm trying to keep my restoration factory-original authentic. So, perusing the old factory parts catalogs, it looks like I need part no. BC-A6019.

Questions for you all:

Does anyone have one of these for sale?

Is there a drawing of this part over on the L-2 blueprints CDs at http://www.taylorcraft.org/extras/l2_blueprints.html? Drawing DC-A647 on disc 2 looks close, except for the tube welded to one side of the airscoop. Other drawings reference parts BC-6176, the front scoop, and BC-6177, the flattish part under the crankcase.

Univair sells an Ercoupe part no. 40480 "scoop assembly, oil sump cooling". Does anyone have an Ercoupe parts manual, and does that look anything like the Taylorcraft part?

Thanks for your help,

[VictorBravo]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

Joel, I am fairly sure that one of two methods will work if you do not find a new one:

1. Pound out the dents, straighten the part, and re-shape it using a set of hammers and some wood blocks. I don't think yo u even need the "shotbag" because the larger curves have already been made. A quickly made wood D-shaped piece will straighten out the indentations for the bolt face mounting bosses. A welder can repair the cracks easily, I think it is an easily weldable alloy.

2. Make a new one, it does not look like that difficult of a project. If you go to the trouble to use SOFT aluminum, which is best for this job anyway, it will be easy. The little cone-shaped spike on the end of a common anvil will allow you to tap the curled "lip" on the back. I made my "improved" one using paper patterns to get the sides right... and then I found that a little tapping once the part is installed will create a good seal anyway.

For what it is worth, I refurbished the stock baffle on my current 85HP installation instead of using my custom made one. By making the fit correct, pounding it back into shape, making sure the TOP of the inlet duct (the horizontal deck under the crankshaft sealing the engine to the nose bowl) is tight, and sealing everything it against the engine with hi-temp RTV, I now have very low oil temps that require the oil hole to be closed off 80%. That's with a good fitting stock lower baffle, mated to a good fitting top deck.

[mikerice]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

Joel-

I know I will get flamed for this suggestion, but the factory most likely has your part in stock. There is just one person there (Antonio) handling calls and the occasional order, while a buyer is located.

The reason I feel confident the part is available is that the Qty is marked as 7 and there is a photo. Most of the problems ordering from the factory had to do with parts that needed to be fabricated. You will find a lot of good comments from people getting parts IF THE PART IS IN STOCK.

Here is the link: http://www.taylorcraft.com/zencart/i...oducts_id=1238

If you can get a hold of Antonio, the odds are he can help you.

[VictorBravo]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

If you can actually get a brand new one for $75 or $80, that seems like a good option. You could easily spend an entire day or more refurbishing the one you have.

If you have oil temperature problems, as mentioned there are a couple of things you can do with the stock design baffle to help.

[Joel Severinghaus]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

Thanks, Mike -- it didn't even occur to me to try the factory, but there it is, exactly the part I need. I'll phone Antonio tomorrow.

[Joel Severinghaus]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

Not having any luck contacting the factory by phone or through their website, so I'm planning to have Tim Wood at STL Aircraft Metal Arts in St. Louis make me a new crankcase baffle BC-A6019. He said he has made the rear part (BC-6177) before and has a template for it, but not the front scoop (BC-6176).

Does anybody have a drawing for BC-6176, or one I could borrow for Tim to copy? What came off my ship was five pieces of aluminum cobbled together with rivets, not the one neatly curved piece that should be there.

[Forrest Barber]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

drawing may not work , they were lofted. Then there was a die for the hydropress I have two here e-mail me direct.

[Dan Michaels]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

Try www.enginebaffles.com in Big Lake Alaska they just made a set for the 170B I am working on. Very nice work, perfect fit, PMA'd.

Dan

[Joel Severinghaus]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

Well, after several days of nobody answering the phone, I finally caught Antonio at the factory on Monday morning. He said the "shopping cart" sales function on the website wasn't working, and their website inventory wasn't accurate, so he took down the part numbers I wanted and said he'd call me back in a hour. That was Monday. Today is Thursday, and I've been calling several times a day since Monday hoping he'll pick up the phone again. Sigh.

Does anyone have that baffle scoop piece BC-6176 that I could borrow or rent to copy, or that you could trace on paper for me?

[mikerice]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

It is true the shopping cart is disabled on the website. I did not activate it from the beginning to force the sales through the phone where a person could take the call. Unfortunately, that did not work very well either.

However I stand by my earlier statements, that if there is a photo of a part on the website, the odds are a part was on the shelf, particularly if the Qty is over 3 or 4. I did ALOT of part fetching in my day down in Brownsville. If I had access to the factory parts room, I could usually find a part in 5 minutes or less.

The main reason the site is still up is to provide a searchable parts list. There are not photos of every part, but there are quite a few. The Part Number and photo should be an asset for the members trying to identify parts. Having a part number might make a call to WagAero or other part suppliers a little easier.

[N96337]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

Well, after several days of nobody answering the phone, I finally caught Antonio at the factory on Monday morning. He said the "shopping cart" sales function on the website wasn't working, and their website inventory wasn't accurate, so he took down the part numbers I wanted and said he'd call me back in a hour. That was Monday. Today is Thursday, and I've been calling several times a day since Monday hoping he'll pick up the phone again. Sigh.

Looks like they're taking after the politician's credo.... don't judge us by what we do...just judge us by what we SAY we're going to do. From the sounds of it...not much has changed there.
John

[Eric Tyson]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

The guys in Big Lake are making my baffle set, they do a nice job and powder coat it. It looks very nice.

[Taylor Maid]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

How much are the Big Lake folks charging for the whole set?

[astjp2]

Re: Replacing the crankcase baffle on my BC-12D

I have the Engine Baffles on my airplane, It better than anything that I had before. Tim