Oil Leak

[dzeleski]

24 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

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.

My opinion was that if oil consumption is 1qt/10hrs it would be pretty unlikely that the plug is oil fouled. Either way pull the plug, it will tell you.

[Shadrach]

53 minutes ago, dzeleski said:

My opinion was that if oil consumption is 1qt/10hrs it would be pretty unlikely that the plug is oil fouled. Either way pull the plug, it will tell you.

One last comment on this unrelated topic. Consider that the reason Lycoming recommends full Rich operations during Taxi is for CHT management during low airflow operations. There are different choices for managing CHT with the mixture.  I don’t know what’s going on during the run up in the photo below, but I’d not be excited to take the runway and begin a takeoff/climb with CHTs in that range.

 

[PT20J]

2 hours ago, 201Steve said:

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.

EXACTLY. My point, since ground leaning was brought up, was that all this leaning that people are doing to supposedly prevent spark plug fouling was a technique originally developed for low compression engines to prevent lead fouling, not oil fouling. I'm with Ross. If your idle mixture is set right, you should only need to lean an IO-360 when at a high density altitude airport. But, it doesn't hurt anything.

[EricJ]

FWIW, I started leaning on the ground and keeping ground idle speed up after getting those hints from Don Maxwell.   It does seem to help, although the biggest step to eliminating lead fouling for me was putting fine wires in the bottom plug locations.   There seems to be a lot of operational experience that it makes a difference.    Some local IO-540 operators do aggressive ground leaning for the same reason, that it appears to reduce the incidence of plug fouling during ground ops.

[gevertex]

5 hours ago, Shadrach said:

One last comment on this unrelated topic. Consider that the reason Lycoming recommends full Rich operations during Taxi is for CHT management during low airflow operations. There are different choices for managing CHT with the mixture.  I don’t know what’s going on during the run up in the photo below, but I’d not be excited to take the runway and begin a takeoff/climb with CHTs in that range.

 

It's been quite a while since I did this, but there was some legitimate reason CHTs were high. Top cowl off or an extended run up or something similar. They don't normally get that high except in flight .

[gevertex]

Update on the topic. AGL agreed to come down to Monroe on Saturday and take a look at the oil leaks. Really appreciate John's willingness to work with me on it. There are no A&Ps that work on field at KEQY.  No idea how that can work for an airport of this size, but it's the reality we are in.

Talking to Savvy, they believe the cylinder seepage is normal and not to worry about it. They were focused on the oil pressure transducer leak and loose oil return line leak.

[201Steve]

7 hours ago, dzeleski said:

My opinion was that if oil consumption is 1qt/10hrs it would be pretty unlikely that the plug is oil fouled

I gotcha. I was confused bc the original post said he was losing a qt every 2 hours. That would be a big messy leak, if it wasn’t combined with excessive consumption. I just saw he was previously getting 10 hrs per quart. Idk. 

 

50 minutes ago, gevertex said:

AGL agreed to come down to Monroe on Saturday and take a look at the oil leaks. Really appreciate John's willingness to work with me on it.

That’s great! I also struggle with lack of full time shop at my field so someone willing to come to you I agree is very helpful. 

[carusoam]

Side note:  (lead observation)

My O360 was a lead pellet manufacturing system… for my first year of ownership… somewhere near Y2K…

No engine monitor, no Fuel Flow sensor… minimal instrumentation… (low pilot time)

Aggressive ground leaning was the method to minimize the lead balls that would collect in the lower spark plugs…

 

Good luck Gevertex!

Nice pics and descriptions!

Best regards,

-a-

[A64Pilot]

Maybe I’m some weird outlier, I’ve got a few thousand hours on an IO-540, a few thousand hours on a C-85 which is supposed to be real bad on lead fouling and a few hundred on my Mooney, an IO-360. I do run car gas often on the C-85 though.

I’ve never fouled a plug, but on the 540 I cleaned them every 50 hours and switched to fine wires early, the C-85 every few years when I think about it, I remember once in 15 years, and the IO-360, never. I’m conducting a silly experiment on that one, seeing how long it takes to foul one, but I run LOP excepting for the climb where I’m WOT. I’m 400 hours or so and no fouling, Massive plugs and stock mag and stock timing.

All I’ll add is if you lean for taxi,  lean the absolute snot out of it, lean it so severe that it won’t even run at 2000 RPM, you won’t hurt it, and that will keep you from taking off leaned out. At taxi power you can do no harm with the red knob, but if you take off leaned out you can get hurt.

Otherwise taxi at full rich, the issue isn’t taxi, the issue is taking off at other than full rich.

Get into the habit as soon as you reach full throttle look at fuel flow, mine is 19 GPH, I’ll admit to seeing lower and realizing I wasn’t full rich.

[Shadrach]

On 1/25/2024 at 12:53 AM, carusoam said:

Side note:  (lead observation)

My O360 was a lead pellet manufacturing system… for my first year of ownership… somewhere near Y2K…

No engine monitor, no Fuel Flow sensor… minimal instrumentation… (low pilot time)

Aggressive ground leaning was the method to minimize the lead balls that would collect in the lower spark plugs…

 

Good luck Gevertex!

Nice pics and descriptions!

Best regards,

-a-

What’s interesting is that my dad bought a C model in 1964 and I can say unequivocally that he never leaned it on the ground during the four years he owned it. I know this because he thought it odd the first time he saw me ground lean the F model. He never mentioned plug fowling was an issue, I’ll have to ask him about when I see him tomorrow. Most flight school aircraft never get leaned. The C150 I trained in was the exception. We were instructed to lean aggressively for taxi. That little O200 did better on mogas.

EDIT- Can confirm that my father never leaned his C model on the ground. He owned it for four years and said that lead fouled plugs were not an issue.

[gevertex]

AGL inspected the engine externally today, fixed the oil leaks (one required additional sealant to fix), and cleaned everything down. I'll be flying it over to AGL to get the internal bore scope, etc to see how things are doing.

[A64Pilot]

On 1/26/2024 at 9:58 PM, Shadrach said:

What’s interesting is that my dad bought a C model in 1965 and I can say unequivocally that he never leaned it on the ground during the three years he owned it. I know this because he thought it odd the first time he saw me ground lean the F model. He never mentioned plug fowling was an issue, I’ll have to ask him about when I see him tomorrow. Most flight school aircraft never get leaned. The C150 I trained in was the exception. We were instructed to lean aggressively for taxi. That little O200 did better on mogas.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s ground leaning was never heard of, for any engine, because we had the correct Octane choices for the engines, Octane and lead content of course are related.

As was said it didn’t become vogue until the little C Continental motors and the O-200 / 235 etc started running higher lead content fuel than they were developed for, min Octane for my C-85 is 73, 100 is ridiculously excessive.

The best cure for the little motors isn’t ground leaning, it’s Mogas. The price difference in the fuel will pay for 100% the cost of overhaul too.

It’s been years but I searched the NTSB database looking for accidents that were from alcohol in Autofuel. Yes I know your not supposed to run it but many do as alcohol free fuel doesn’t exist in many States, and most don’t test either, the test is simple all you need is a canning jar or other clear container.

At that time I couldn’t find a single accident where alcohol contributed or was even mentioned in the accident report.

Only rubber I can think of in my C-85 fuel system is the fuel hose from the strainer to the carb, and an O-ring in the primer. I don’t think the fuel selector valve has an O-ring, there is no rubber in the carb, the needle doesn’t have a rubber tip.

Alcohol fuel has caused problems in the Marine industry though for whatever that’s worth.

I don’t know but suspect many carbureted Mooney’s can get an Auto fuel STC, if they can I’d run car gas if I could. Yes it stinks, and doesn’t store well, but just a little Avgas mixed in seems to fix the storage issue.

I’ve been running mostly car gas for 15 years or so in my 140.

[A64Pilot]

18 hours ago, gevertex said:

AGL inspected the engine externally today, fixed the oil leaks (one required additional sealant to fix), and cleaned everything down. I'll be flying it over to AGL to get the internal bore scope, etc to see how things are doing.

You have chrome cylinders, if you’re only using one quart every 10 hours that’s the best I have ever heard of for chrome, that’s actually extremely good for any material cylinders. Borescope sure mostly look at valves though at that oil consumption your ring seal has to be excellent.

[Will.iam]

5 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

You have chrome cylinders, if you’re only using one quart every 10 hours that’s the best I have ever heard of for chrome, that’s actually extremely good for any material cylinders. Borescope sure mostly look at valves though at that oil consumption your ring seal has to be excellent.

I use about 1 quart every 9 hours or so and compressions all came back upper 60’s to lower 70’s but I know my rings are not sealing as well as they should be due to the oil turning black from blowby in 4 to 8 hours of engine running after an oil change. 

[gevertex]

On 1/28/2024 at 1:00 PM, A64Pilot said:

You have chrome cylinders, if you’re only using one quart every 10 hours that’s the best I have ever heard of for chrome, that’s actually extremely good for any material cylinders. Borescope sure mostly look at valves though at that oil consumption your ring seal has to be excellent.

That's just my estimate based upon when I last added a qt before the leak seemed to start. I'll get a more precise measurement now that the leaks are resolved. I did the run up, de-cowled to ensure leaks were gone, then test flight today. Everything looks good so far.

Edited January 29 by gevertex

[gevertex]

20 hours ago, Will.iam said:

I use about 1 quart every 9 hours or so and compressions all came back upper 60’s to lower 70’s but I know my rings are not sealing as well as they should be due to the oil turning black from blowby in 4 to 8 hours of engine running after an oil change. 

That is another thing I should mention. I got to just over 20 hours on my last oil change before the oil started turning black. Hopefully a good sign (I have no data for how long that should take as I was renting before this). AGL is going to do a compression check, change the oil, oil analysis, borescope, etc. Hopefully it all comes back good. Last annual compressions came back varied (some low 60's some as high as 78), but the engine had only 17 hours on it at the time. So hopefully things have dramatically improved with more break-in time.

Edited January 29 by gevertex

[gevertex]

On 1/24/2024 at 11:28 AM, Shadrach said:

@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.

Realized I neglected to reply. I really appreciate this. The borescope / check is more for my peace of mind than anything else. All signs at this stage point to things being ok.
 

• No excessive blow by (over 20 hours to oil turning black)
• Oil consumption seemed to be satisfactory prior to the oil leak
• Valve tube seepage seems to be resolved after retaining clips were properly seated

 

All in all things are looking ok in terms of what I can verify at the moment.

 

[gevertex]

Compressions came back great 80,79,79,74. However I do appear to have an intake valve guide oil leak on #1 as evidenced by oil on intake header. I'll address at annual. Really appreciate John from AGL helping me out on this.

Now to keep an eye on my oil consumption and get results from oil analysis.

 

Also had the pleasure of meeting @CJ today at KMRN. Hello @CJ!

Edited February 8 by gevertex

[EricJ]

2 minutes ago, gevertex said:

Compressions came back great 80,79,79,74. However I do appear to have an intake valve guide oil leak on #1 as evidenced by oil on intake header. I'll address at annual. Really appreciate John from AGL helping me out on this.

Now to keep an eye on my oil consumption and get results from oil analysis.

 

Also had the pleasure of meeting @CJ today at KMRN. Hello @CJ!

Those intake leaks are pretty common.   I think most of my cylinders do that to some degree.   It's something to monitor to make sure they don't get awful.