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Engine vibration damage?

Yesterday as I took off, I noted my engine was sounding a little different. Contributing it to that fact that I had not flown for a while & wheather conditions, I did a 10-minute flight & landed to note that one of the propeller blades was missing a tip piece (14x6 propeller, OS surpass 91 IIP engine). The resulting imbalance must have created enough vibration because one of the engine mount screws was gone, so were four screws (out of six) that hold the cowling in place. Finally engine firewall to fuselage joint had a 2-inch crack from the top and my muffler had gotten loose as well.

The engine looks fine externaly and from what I can see by removing the backplate, things are fine internally as well (I'm no expert). I ran the engine and it ran fine as well. The question that I have is that is there a reason to suspect that there may be a bearing damage? Short of sending the engine to hobby services, is there anything that I can do to conclude that the engine is OK?

Thanks, MN

Reply to
mn
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The bearings in your engine are designed for a lot more loading than the rest of the airframe would survive. I suspect that they are just fine as long as you used good lube in your fuel.

Reply to
Paul McIntosh

USUALLY!

Reply to
Six_O'Clock_High

Thanks for the comments that you all have made. Yesterday I took the plane out & after a 10-minute ground test followed by five 15-minute flights, I concluded that things were back to normal. I will inspect the airframe one more time just to be sure. My lesson learned is that if something doesn't feel right, I'll be landing just to be sure. Even if everything turns out to be fine, what I've wasted is that I've cut one flight short. Thanks, MN

Reply to
mn

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