I finally found an oil leak

[Bartman]

Many of you may remember my thread regarding being done with climb to cruise at 2700 RPM due to oil consumption.  Although it did make a difference, several members of the community cautioned that this may not explain the whole problem.  I thank you guys for getting me to think about leaks one more time.  After I got then new Sky-Tec 149NL starter and on the return flight from Destin FL we departed with 6qts and used 1 quart in 4 hours so I decided to wash down the engine and look one more time.  I have washed it in the past and failed to identify a leak.  It was washed down on two occasions by A+P and failed to identify a leak even with the clean and powder method. 

After thorough cleaning and overfilling by one quart and letting her sit for a couple of days as recommended in an old thread by @Piloto I found nothing so I climbed balls to the wall to 6000 feet, throttled back, and closed the cowl flaps. I did my best to descend at no more than 100 Kts in an effort to keep any oil at the site of the leak and not blow all over the engine.  I found two drops of oil on the bottom oil cooler 90 degree fitting, and one drop directly under it too.  Both oil cooler hoses felt stiff so we have decided to replace both.  I also found on the left front cylinder, the top aft stud going thru the cylinder mounting flange had some oil around it.  There was also a small amount of oil on the bottom cylinder flange stud directly under it, but it was not running down below so may be coming from the stud above and running down.

I'm near 1700 SMOH and she runs great with nothing in the oil filter.  I'm thinking about pulling the cylinder and look at the camshaft and if it looks good then seal the stud or put in an oversize stud, do what needs to be done to the cylinder and keep on flying. As long as compressions are good and no change in the engine the AP/IA says he will sign off so I may get another 500 hrs or more... ya never know.  If we don't like what we see after cylinder removal then the AP/IA that I work with will discuss rebuild or exchange options.

[KSMooniac]

Good work, good plan.

Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

[Mcstealth]

You took advice from @Piloto ????????  WOW

 

Just kidding'

[Bartman]

8 hours ago, Mcstealth said:

You took advice from @Piloto ????????  WOW

 

Just kidding'

Yeah he has probably forgotten as much as I know, but I'm gonna pass on the @Piloto relief tube