Oil Leak

[gevertex]

26 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

This is precisely the reason I asked the question. It was sounding far too familiar reading through your growing list of discoveries. 
 

 

it’s a long read but some of it may sound familiar. I don’t mean to startle you and as a fellow aircraft owner I sincerely hope your engine is fine, but David Jewell is the most inept mechanic I have ever had the displeasure of knowing. They cut corners, do cheap work, and as you’ll read, I have made an effort to let it be known. 
 

Don’t expect him to do anything about it, but from a safety perspective, I would have another mechanic go through the engine as best you can. Boroscope, filter analysis, oil samples, visual checks, and torques. If you have a J with a dual magneto, Make certain that he used the correct clamps and used the correct torque. Mine was dangerously loose and he said he didn’t agree with the torque value called out in Lycoming SB. 
 

since you are a savvy client, be sure to let them know who built the engine. 

Yes. I have seen this. Sorry this happened to you. Unfortunately all of this started coming out after I had sent the engine to them. AGL Aviation had recommended Jewell so that is the shop I used. I really hope mine does not go as sidewards as yours. I did let Savvy know who rebuilt it. Luckily, I did not have them reinstall the engine. Engine, Magneto and all accessories were installed by another shop.

Edited January 23 by gevertex

[201Steve]

@gevertex I assume your dealings with AGL were recent enough that Lynne and Tammy Mace had already left? I’ve been curious how recurrent customers felt about the quality of the shop now. I do not know anything about the new operation/new management. 

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, gevertex said:

I went ahead and took off the bottom cowl and found a few interesting things. First, found what appears to be an oil line (is that an oil return line?) on cylinder #3 that had it's fastener backed off a few turns. It wasn't even hand tight. Most things under and around that were pretty much soaked with oil. Thinking that could be the primary culprit.

I would tend to agree that this is the most likely issue, and snugging that down (do not overtighten) will probably fix the leak.   I also agree with the sentiment expressed by others that this deficiency alone on a fresh engine suggests everything needs to be inspected carefully.   Check the other drain tubes, intake tubes, pushrod tubes, etc.

[gevertex]

16 hours ago, 201Steve said:

@gevertex I assume your dealings with AGL were recent enough that Lynne and Tammy Mace had already left? I’ve been curious how recurrent customers felt about the quality of the shop now. I do not know anything about the new operation/new management. 

I'll write up the facts and you can take what you want from it.

My situation was difficult. Lynne did the pre-buy and discovered the need for an overhaul (cylinder at 38/80 PSI and copious amounts of metal in the oil filter, and some history that had not been satisfactorily dealt with). I agreed to buy the airplane anyway for a significant discount. Lynne sent the engine off to Jewell for overhaul. Shortly before the engine was supposed to arrive back at Foothills, I found out from a 3rd party that Lynne was leaving and was trying to sell the shop. This was obviously really bad news for me as the airplane wasn't going anywhere and Foothills is in a pretty remote area with no other mechanics near by. Lynne left a couple days before the engine arrived at Foothills. So I was pretty stuck. I called other mechanics to see if I could get someone up there without luck. I was out of options.

 

Luckily John bought AGL. However, John's list of items the airplane needed far exceeded Lynn's from the pre-buy.

John recommended.

-Overhauled oil cooler (old one had metal contamination in it)
-New propeller (initially recommended overhaul, but blades didn't pass spec so ended up buying new)
-Overhauled propeller governor
-New oil hoses
-Engine mounts
-I am sure there was more

Me being the type to want to fix/replace things before they break, especially in the engine compartment, I went for all of these.

Annual happened a few months after that, and several more things were found

-Dual mag in need of overhaul (~670 hours)
-Ignition harness with missing parts (harness needed to be replaced as parts were not individually available). Harness looked end of life so it was on my list anyway
 

I opted for several more items to be done as I was getting a new glass panel and didn't want any trouble.

-Overhauled alternator

-Overhauled voltage regulator

Subsequently found a loose exhaust and intake header tubes, and the issues this post is about.

I will say the engine runs fantastic. Very smooth. The only thing of note the occasional burble at idle, but I am told this is pretty normal for lycoming engines.

Edited January 23 by gevertex

[gevertex]

25 minutes ago, EricJ said:

I would tend to agree that this is the most likely issue, and snugging that down (do not overtighten) will probably fix the leak.   I also agree with the sentiment expressed by others that this deficiency alone on a fresh engine suggests everything needs to be inspected carefully.   Check the other drain tubes, intake tubes, pushrod tubes, etc.

Agree, planning to get it looked over.

[Fly Boomer]

On 1/21/2024 at 9:14 PM, gevertex said:

So I started looking for oil and found a decent amount of oil.

Clean it up.  Run it up (or take a turn around the patch).  Remove cowling, and inspect.  You can also put it in a dark hangar, and use a serious UV light -- no dye needed.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2020/march/30/aircraft-maintenance-black-lights-arent-just-for-parties

[gevertex]

I appreciate all of the help / recommendations. I'll definitely be getting this engine looked at further given all of the seepage/leaks. I am going to go ahead and get the offending line tightened up, cleaned up, and give it a run / check. The rest looks minor enough to me that I could fly it to the closest shop to get a more thorough inspection / those issues corrected.

[redbaron1982]

58 minutes ago, gevertex said:

I appreciate all of the help / recommendations. I'll definitely be getting this engine looked at further given all of the seepage/leaks. I am going to go ahead and get the offending line tightened up, cleaned up, and give it a run / check. The rest looks minor enough to me that I could fly it to the closest shop to get a more thorough inspection / those issues corrected.

I wouldn´t assume that the only issues are oil leaks. If they engine was overhauled, and so many discrepancies are showing up now (as in several things loose), you should assume that more things could be hidden.

For instance, and I'm not sure, just asking for others input, but having oil in the base of cylinders shouldn't be common for an engine that is only 70SMOH. Were all the thru bolts torqued properly?

[dzeleski]

1 hour ago, redbaron1982 said:

For instance, and I'm not sure, just asking for others input, but having oil in the base of cylinders shouldn't be common for an engine that is only 70SMOH. Were all the thru bolts torqued properly?

Depends what cylinders are installed, If the engine isnt run hard chrome cylinders can take ages to break in. A little bit of oil after shutdown isnt unheard of especially if the rings just happen to line up the right way. It can also be sneaking in from the valves during shut down. If its a proper pool of oil and the lower spark plug is oil soaked you might have a problem. Generally that would come with pretty high oil consumption as well. A borescope would revel quite a bit however.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/january/pilot/savvy-maintenance-breaking-good

"Up to this point, I’ve been discussing break-in of conventional steel-barreled cylinders. There are also two types of electroplated cylinder barrels used in piston aircraft engines: chrome-plated and nickel-plated. Chrome-plated cylinders are extremely hard and durable and utilize a non-honed channeling process to achieve the necessary oil-wettability. Nickel-plated cylinders employ carbide granules embedded in the plating for the same purpose."

"The rules for breaking in these plated cylinders are much like those for ordinary steel cylinders. However, channel-chrome cylinders generally require more time to break in—sometimes 50 hours or more—and generally exhibit higher oil consumption than steel cylinders. Nickel-carbide cylinders, on the other hand, tend to break in very quickly and have very low oil consumption."

If you dont know what type of cylinder you have installed: https://www.lycoming.com/content/understanding-engine-color-codes

Edited January 23 by dzeleski

[201Steve]

Something you could do now, while it’s decowled, is pull the bottom spark plugs to see if they are oil soaked. It may well be the case that you’re both leaking oil and consuming it through passage by the rings. An oil coated plug would be a strong indicator of this. Even better if you have access to a boroscope. 
 

Jewell doesn’t have the same standard of overhauling cylinders as everybody else, it seems. As was the case for me, LOTS of oil consumption. He basically changes out the valve guides (maybe), laps the valve face, and runs a dingle berry stone on a handheld drill, and calls it overhauled. To my knowledge they do not own a proper barrel machining tool. Under those conditions, poor ring sealing would not be surprising. Check out the boroscope photos in my post where pools of oil were visible inside the combustion chamber. That was all 4 cylinders, not just one. 

[gevertex]

3 hours ago, dzeleski said:

Depends what cylinders are installed, If the engine isnt run hard chrome cylinders can take ages to break in. A little bit of oil after shutdown isnt unheard of especially if the rings just happen to line up the right way. It can also be sneaking in from the valves during shut down. If its a proper pool of oil and the lower spark plug is oil soaked you might have a problem. Generally that would come with pretty high oil consumption as well. A borescope would revel quite a bit however.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/january/pilot/savvy-maintenance-breaking-good

"Up to this point, I’ve been discussing break-in of conventional steel-barreled cylinders. There are also two types of electroplated cylinder barrels used in piston aircraft engines: chrome-plated and nickel-plated. Chrome-plated cylinders are extremely hard and durable and utilize a non-honed channeling process to achieve the necessary oil-wettability. Nickel-plated cylinders employ carbide granules embedded in the plating for the same purpose."

"The rules for breaking in these plated cylinders are much like those for ordinary steel cylinders. However, channel-chrome cylinders generally require more time to break in—sometimes 50 hours or more—and generally exhibit higher oil consumption than steel cylinders. Nickel-carbide cylinders, on the other hand, tend to break in very quickly and have very low oil consumption."

If you dont know what type of cylinder you have installed: https://www.lycoming.com/content/understanding-engine-color-codes

I have chrome cylinders.

[gevertex]

1 hour ago, 201Steve said:

Something you could do now, while it’s decowled, is pull the bottom spark plugs to see if they are oil soaked. It may well be the case that you’re both leaking oil and consuming it through passage by the rings. An oil coated plug would be a strong indicator of this. Even better if you have access to a boroscope. 
 

Jewell doesn’t have the same standard of overhauling cylinders as everybody else, it seems. As was the case for me, LOTS of oil consumption. He basically changes out the valve guides (maybe), laps the valve face, and runs a dingle berry stone on a handheld drill, and calls it overhauled. To my knowledge they do not own a proper barrel machining tool. Under those conditions, poor ring sealing would not be surprising. Check out the boroscope photos in my post where pools of oil were visible inside the combustion chamber. That was all 4 cylinders, not just one. 

I did not know there were different standards for overhauling cylinders... That's not good news.  The good news though is up until recently oil consumption had been as low as 1qt/10 hours. The not good news is I was getting a fowled plug that I had to clear on about half my flights, but lately that hasn't been a problem. Perhaps it's the colder weather. I have been running Phillips XC 20W-50. I'll get the spark plug checked. I do have a cheap bore scope, but I wouldn't know what to look for. I'll get an A&P involved through Savvy.

[gevertex]

5 hours ago, redbaron1982 said:

I wouldn´t assume that the only issues are oil leaks. If they engine was overhauled, and so many discrepancies are showing up now (as in several things loose), you should assume that more things could be hidden.

For instance, and I'm not sure, just asking for others input, but having oil in the base of cylinders shouldn't be common for an engine that is only 70SMOH. Were all the thru bolts torqued properly?

Not good signs from a couple shops unfortunately. As I understand it, a newly overhauled engine should not be seeping at cylinder bases so soon, but it's otherwise relatively common. I can get over having cylinders that will only last another 300-500 hours as long as that failure happens slowly with plenty of notice and not suddenly while I am flying. Inspections incoming.

[dzeleski]

46 minutes ago, gevertex said:

I have chrome cylinders.

 

41 minutes ago, gevertex said:

I did not know there were different standards for overhauling cylinders... That's not good news.  The good news though is up until recently oil consumption had been as low as 1qt/10 hours. The not good news is I was getting a fowled plug that I had to clear on about half my flights, but lately that hasn't been a problem. Perhaps it's the colder weather. I have been running Phillips XC 20W-50. I'll get the spark plug checked. I do have a cheap bore scope, but I wouldn't know what to look for. I'll get an A&P involved through Savvy.

Thats pretty normal oil consumption. If you get photos you can post them here, a bunch of us can help explain what is happening based on photos.

A fowled plug doesnt really mean anything is "wrong" on its own. Have you operated an M20 before or was this your first? Are you leaning aggressively on the ground immediately after engine start? If you are not leaning to the point that adding throttle starts to kill the engine you risk fouling a plug. If you are leaning, then you should figure out which plug is fouled (if you have an engine monitor it should be pretty easy to see during the mag check), pull it and see if its lead fouled or oil. If a mag check doesnt make the problem worse or better then you might have "morning sickness" and you may have a valve that is sticking when cold, if you have an engine monitor this is also really easy to spot.

 

Edited January 23 by dzeleski

[gevertex]

36 minutes ago, dzeleski said:

 

Thats pretty normal oil consumption. If you get photos you can post them here, a bunch of us can help explain what is happening based on photos.

A fowled plug doesnt really mean anything is "wrong" on its own. Have you operated an M20 before or was this your first? Are you leaning aggressively on the ground immediately after engine start? If you are not leaning to the point that adding throttle starts to kill the engine you risk fouling a plug. If you are leaning, then you should figure out which plug is fouled (if you have an engine monitor it should be pretty easy to see during the mag check), pull it and see if its lead fouled or oil. If a mag check doesnt make the problem worse or better then you might have "morning sickness" and you may have a valve that is sticking when cold, if you have an engine monitor this is also really easy to spot.

 

This is my first M20. I have since learned to lean enough that the engine won't throttle up to start taxiing. I then have to add some mixture to get moving. Run up with leaning has cleared the issue every time. I have not had it happen since winter started. A&P was convinced it was a fowled plug. I did manage to snap a photo of the engine monitor at run-up on each mag when it was marginal.

[dzeleski]

46 minutes ago, gevertex said:

This is my first M20. I have since learned to lean enough that the engine won't throttle up to start taxiing. I then have to add some mixture to get moving. Run up with leaning has cleared the issue every time. I have not had it happen since winter started. A&P was convinced it was a fowled plug. I did manage to snap a photo of the engine monitor at run-up on each mag when it was marginal.

 

Could also just be a bad plug... if you can identify which one it is and swap it with another cylinder, if the issue follows then you have a bad plug. You can also ask your A&P to test the spark plug and see if it passes.

[gevertex]

16 hours ago, dzeleski said:

Could also just be a bad plug... if you can identify which one it is and swap it with another cylinder, if the issue follows then you have a bad plug. You can also ask your A&P to test the spark plug and see if it passes.

Appears to be right mag #3 based upon the EGT being a lot lower in the picture. Right is always lower RPM than left in my plane.

[Shadrach]

20 hours ago, gevertex said:

I did not know there were different standards for overhauling cylinders... That's not good news.  The good news though is up until recently oil consumption had been as low as 1qt/10 hours. The not good news is I was getting a fowled plug that I had to clear on about half my flights, but lately that hasn't been a problem. Perhaps it's the colder weather. I have been running Phillips XC 20W-50. I'll get the spark plug checked. I do have a cheap bore scope, but I wouldn't know what to look for. I'll get an A&P involved through Savvy.

1 qt in 10hrs is an excellent oil usage number and is actually on the low side for chrome cylinders. Chrome cylinders are not honed. I doubt Jewel is doing barrel work to chrome cylinders.

[Shadrach]

On 1/23/2024 at 3:25 PM, dzeleski said:

Are you leaning aggressively on the ground immediately after engine start? If you are not leaning to the point that adding throttle starts to kill the engine you risk fouling a plug. 

This not true for injected Lycomings. It’s fine to do it and is best practice for carbureted aircraft where poor fuel distribution at idle can foul plugs. However, an IO360 should operate beautifully on the ground at full rich unless at high DAs. If it doesn’t, the idle mixture is improperly set.

[Shadrach]

19 hours ago, gevertex said:

This is my first M20. I have since learned to lean enough that the engine won't throttle up to start taxiing. I then have to add some mixture to get moving. Run up with leaning has cleared the issue every time. I have not had it happen since winter started. A&P was convinced it was a fowled plug. I did manage to snap a photo of the engine monitor at run-up on each mag when it was marginal.

Those are rather warm CHTs for a run up. If you are leaned out for run up, expect larger mag drops and rougher running.

[Shadrach]

@gevertex

After reading this thread, I would suggest you make a list of real, verifiable symptoms. Then go after those. Let the inconsequential/superficial stuff go for now. These threads can get carried away sometimes and you can quickly find yourself looking at an “internet overhaul” before you know it.  There have been legitimate issues with Jewell’s services lately. However, your situation is yours and yours alone. Stick to solving the tangible problems and for now, avoid speculating about all of the potential unknowns.

[dzeleski]

36 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

This not true for injected Lycomings. It’s fine to do it and is best practice for carbureted aircraft where poor fuel distribution at idle can foul plugs. However, an IO360 should operate beautifully on the ground at full rich unless at very high DAs. If it doesn’t, the idle mixture is improperly set.

I dont think I said anywhere that the engine wont run just fine, it 100% will run. I and many others absolutely had plug issues by running rich on the ground, my plugs had far more lead build up in them then they do when I stay lean on the ground. Mike Busch recommends it as well.

Edit: https://resources.savvyaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/slides_airventure2021/2021-07-27 1000 F7 Leaning the Right Way.pdf

Page 19 is the summary

Edited January 24 by dzeleski

[Shadrach]

17 hours ago, dzeleski said:

I dont think I said anywhere that the engine wont run just fine, it 100% will run. I and many others absolutely had plug issues by running rich on the ground, my plugs had far more lead build up in them then they do when I stay lean on the ground. Mike Busch recommends it as well.

Edit: https://resources.savvyaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/slides_airventure2021/2021-07-27 1000 F7 Leaning the Right Way.pdf

Page 19 is the summary

Sorry If I was clumsy in my wording. By “run just fine”, I mean an IO360 being ground run at full rich runs no risk of fouling plugs from the composition of the idle mixture if the idle mixture is properly set.

Mike Busch has to give advice to a wide spectrum of operators. Log runner intake Continentals run rich from back to front because of occult fuel migration from one cylinder to the next. Good idea to lean those on the ground, especially if they don’t have GAMIs. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with ground leaning an injected, angle valve, Lycoming; it’s good standard practice, but not because they are at risk of lead fouling from an overly rich mixture. Furthermore, sending someone down a potential SOP/maintenance rabbit hole over ground leaning is white noise in a thread like this.

[PT20J]

The ground leaning idea originated with the demise of 80 octane avgas. Engines that were designed for 80 octane began having spark plug lead fouling problems with 100LL. Leaning the mixture raises the combustion chamber temperature so that the scavenging agent does a better job of getting rid of the lead. The Cessna 152 engine was especially prone to fouling and eventually the BY spark plugs were developed to mitigate the problem by extending the electrodes farther into the combustion chamber where they run hotter. The BY plugs are approved for the IO-360 and I run them. They provide the operational benefits of the fine wires, although not the reduced maintenance, at lower cost.

I don't believe that I have ever seen the ground leaning procedure in a POH. 

[201Steve]

How did we go from potentially oil fouled spark plugs to leaning procedures? lol

lead fouling and oil fouling are not the same thing, as you are all aware but I don't think I remember seeing anything about him having lead fouling problems.