Best Shops for TSIO 360LB

[Logwes21]

On 11/23/2022 at 5:51 AM, jlunseth said:

It’s an old story now but I had this happen nearly a decade ago, LB engine. A piece of plastic that was long and thin passed into the oil quick drain so when the mechanic closed the drain it did not seal. Blew most of the oil out over Lake Michigan and made an emergency descent and landing at London ONT. There was another “swimmer” in the oil, a piece of rubber about the size of a dime that was speculated to have come from a gasket when a cylinder head was mounted before I owned the aircraft. That appeared to have blocked the quick drain entrance hole so the engine got down to around 2 qts. Yes, there is some pressure at that oil level. It was 14 psi as I recall (instead of around 38), and when I throttle the engine to idle to try to save it in case I needed it to make the airport and tipped the nose over to begin an emergency descent, it dropped to about 4-6 psi. I had the engine IRANd at Bolduc at KANE. They did a superb job and I got many compliments from Mooney instructors after that commenting on how smooth the engine was. All that happened at around 1000 hours and the engine is currently at 2250 and will be replaced this winter. I will miss it, it has been a great running very smooth engine. Hope the new one can come up to that standard.

Late to the chat here but just had this exact same thing happen to me. Idle oil pressure once on ground around 14 psi and during descent dropped to about 4 psi. What kind of inspection and repair did it require. Mine is currently at the shop looking for the leak. 
 

Any other information appreciated. Thanks 

[jetdriven]

If it was 4 psi it needs to come off and be taken apart

[jlunseth]

20 hours ago, jetdriven said:

If it was 4 psi it needs to come off and be taken apart

Well, it should be. This happened to me in Canada, and the Canadian mechanics immediately figured out that the quick drain was leaking. But they also found that a fairly large piece of rubber gasket material was swimming around in the oil, and managed to plug the intake hole of the quick drain. So the engine still had about 2 1/2 quarts of oil, it was not completely dry. The OP got to 4 psi because I throttled the engine to idle to try to save it in case I needed a little power to make it to the runway, and also because I tipped the nose over fairly sharply because I had to dive about 18,000 feet quickly to avoid being blown over Lake Huron by tailwinds. Tipping the nose over causes the oil to run away from the pump intake. It was not unexpected, but still tightened the sphincter muscles. So the Canadian mechanics felt they did not have to disassemble the engine. Unfortunately, the steep unpowered dive caused some piston slap and within a couple hundred hours I had the entire engine IRANd, which is probably what should have happened right away. 

[jetdriven]

If you call Continental or Lycoming and tell them it ran with no oil pressure, they will tell you to tear it apart. Because the hydrodynamic wedge has been compromised, and you can’t guarantee that the engine will not fail later. I can’t believe anybody with the professional license would tell you it was OK to continue with an engine that has been treated like that.