Mike H
Silver Member
First a caveat: I'm an engineer and can't evade failure analysis.
When I did my 50 hr maintenance recently (TC33), the HST filter looked funny to me. It was raining today so I finally got around to cutting it open and looking at it. The filter element was buckled. The metal center cylinder was dented in radially about 3/8". My first and second reactions were "oh !%$@#!". But I really don't think this buckled hydraulically. The paper element is almost perfectly clean, there are no tears, and there's no damage to the elastomeric seal (so there was no pressure release rupture). As I studied it some more, the only explanation I could come up with is that it was mechanically damaged prior to assembly. It looks like crap but functionally, it would work fine. I know that in my job daily I'm called on to evaluate discrepant parts and if they won't hurt functionally, we ship 'em.
Thoughts? Anybody seen anything like this beforel
When I did my 50 hr maintenance recently (TC33), the HST filter looked funny to me. It was raining today so I finally got around to cutting it open and looking at it. The filter element was buckled. The metal center cylinder was dented in radially about 3/8". My first and second reactions were "oh !%$@#!". But I really don't think this buckled hydraulically. The paper element is almost perfectly clean, there are no tears, and there's no damage to the elastomeric seal (so there was no pressure release rupture). As I studied it some more, the only explanation I could come up with is that it was mechanically damaged prior to assembly. It looks like crap but functionally, it would work fine. I know that in my job daily I'm called on to evaluate discrepant parts and if they won't hurt functionally, we ship 'em.
Thoughts? Anybody seen anything like this beforel