Advice wanted: Metal in oil filter element

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, Wingover said:

How did you know the metal was from the governor and not something else?

The local shop that tried to overhaul the governor said it was totally roached and couldn't be overhauled, i.e., it had essentially destroyed itself and internal parts were chewed up and couldn't be reused.   I replaced it with a new governor and there hasn't been any significant metal in the filter since.   That was 570 hours ago so I'm confident that that was the problem.

[DXB]

1 hour ago, Fritz1 said:

yes, by all means, further investigation is prudent, I think there is a contorted way to stick a borescope into the engine, either through the oil filler spout or through the oil drain, I have never done it myself, your A&P will know, then you can see at least one cam lobe, this lobe may already give you the answer, the evil you know is better than the evil you don't know, I keep fingers crossed!

There is no practical way to do this on a Lycoming engine with current borescopes - the contortions required are extreme.  The only way to get a view is pull at least one jug. If you pull one you can use a borescope to see the adjacent cam lobes and lifters, preventing the need to pull two jugs.

[toto]

I took another shot at this with the magnet after letting the filter element dry for another day, and I collected more metal.  This stuff is really really fine - teeny tiny little flakes of metal.  I tried to collect as much as I could in an envelope (below), but it's really hard to work with - the little bits are covered in oil.  Most of what you see in the photo below is just clumps of oil with a ton of little glitter pieces stuck in it.

I looked at Lycoming SB 480F (attached), and this doesn't seem to fit cleanly into any of their categories.  It's clearly ferrous metal, since it sticks to my magnet, but there's a ton of tiny little pieces.  Probably hundreds of them, but all amounting to (I'm guessing) less than 1/4 teaspoon at most.  I'll never be able to collect all of them or get a real measurement.

The only categories that seem to apply to me are the "10 or fewer short hair-like pieces of metallic metal" (which isn't right for several reasons) or "1/2 teaspoonful" of metal (I don't have anywhere near that much).

Going back to the "if metal found" article from Lycoming, these are definitely shiny, flake-like metal, but it's magnetic - not non-magnetic.  So I can't find any advice that directly applies. 

 

Lycoming SB480F.pdf

[Fritz1]

take the suction tube out, yes it is a bitch, bigger pieces may be lodged there, sending the collected debris and the filter paper off for analysis may still tell you something, you want to know where this stuff is coming from, costs very little and then make the best decision you can whether to keep running the engine or tearing it down

[Fritz1]

suction screen

[hammdo]

I just went through this:

what I found in the filter:

what it came from:

 

 

 

did an IRAN with new cam, DLC lifters, cylinders, bearings etc…

-Don

[Meshach]

51 minutes ago, hammdo said:

I just went through this:

what I found in the filter:

what it came from:

 

 

 

did an IRAN with new cam, DLC lifters, cylinders, bearings etc…

-Don

And how many AMUs did that run you?

[toto]

51 minutes ago, hammdo said:

I just went through this:

what I found in the filter:

what it came from:

 

 

 

did an IRAN with new cam, DLC lifters, cylinders, bearings etc…

-Don

Interesting, thank you. What made you decide to do an IRAN versus an overhaul?

[EricJ]

6 hours ago, toto said:

I took another shot at this with the magnet after letting the filter element dry for another day, and I collected more metal.  This stuff is really really fine - teeny tiny little flakes of metal.  I tried to collect as much as I could in an envelope (below), but it's really hard to work with - the little bits are covered in oil.  Most of what you see in the photo below is just clumps of oil with a ton of little glitter pieces stuck in it.

I looked at Lycoming SB 480F (attached), and this doesn't seem to fit cleanly into any of their categories.  It's clearly ferrous metal, since it sticks to my magnet, but there's a ton of tiny little pieces.  Probably hundreds of them, but all amounting to (I'm guessing) less than 1/4 teaspoon at most.  I'll never be able to collect all of them or get a real measurement.

The only categories that seem to apply to me are the "10 or fewer short hair-like pieces of metallic metal" (which isn't right for several reasons) or "1/2 teaspoonful" of metal (I don't have anywhere near that much).

Going back to the "if metal found" article from Lycoming, these are definitely shiny, flake-like metal, but it's magnetic - not non-magnetic.  So I can't find any advice that directly applies. 

 

Lycoming SB480F.pdf 657.78 kB · 0 downloads

When mine was making metal I talked to both the local Lycoming rep and the rep from AES, the shop that had done an IRAN on my motor about 100 hours or so previous with the previous owner.   Both were very consistent in stating, "Keep running it, keep an eye on it."   That's basically the conclusion from the Lycoming SB for cases that don't quite rise to the level of specific advice.   People are sometimes shocked that you can have up to 1/4 teaspoon of metal and not really need to do anything.    Apparently the number of cases that self-clearance or just don't present much risk until the failing part is obvious is pretty high, so unless it's making the significant amounts of metal quantified in the SB, you're better off to just keep running it and keep an eye on it.    Spalling lifters and cams generally present a very slow, soft failure of just slowly diminishing performance.  There are some minimally invasive techniques to check for worn cams by checking valve lift, so if you start to get diminished performance that's a good thing to check.

As others have mentioned, checking the oil suction screen (which is separate from the pressure filter) is not a bad idea since it'll catch the really big chunks and will let you know if there's a bearing disintegrating or something.   Often that's accompanied by flakes in the filter, which you're not seeing, but it may still be worth checking.

If the amount of metal in the filter increases in subsequent oil changes, then further action may be warranted.

 

[toto]

30 minutes ago, EricJ said:

When mine was making metal I talked to both the local Lycoming rep and the rep from AES, the shop that had done an IRAN on my motor about 100 hours or so previous with the previous owner.   Both were very consistent in stating, "Keep running it, keep an eye on it."   That's basically the conclusion from the Lycoming SB for cases that don't quite rise to the level of specific advice.   People are sometimes shocked that you can have up to 1/4 teaspoon of metal and not really need to do anything.    Apparently the number of cases that self-clearance or just don't present much risk until the failing part is obvious is pretty high, so unless it's making the significant amounts of metal quantified in the SB, you're better off to just keep running it and keep an eye on it.    Spalling lifters and cams generally present a very slow, soft failure of just slowly diminishing performance.  There are some minimally invasive techniques to check for worn cams by checking valve lift, so if you start to get diminished performance that's a good thing to check.

As others have mentioned, checking the oil suction screen (which is separate from the pressure filter) is not a bad idea since it'll catch the really big chunks and will let you know if there's a bearing disintegrating or something.   Often that's accompanied by flakes in the filter, which you're not seeing, but it may still be worth checking.

If the amount of metal in the filter increases in subsequent oil changes, then further action may be warranted.

 

This is really helpful, thank you

 

[hammdo]

Out the door, ~$23k for labor, RnR, IRAN and new items. The case/crank etc was certified 800 hours ago. Discussed with a few A&Ps, IRAN was my best option - took 3 weeks vs 6 months of down time. Also, no metal in previous filter checks, this one showed up and oil analysis showed it went up a lot. Decided I didn’t want to fly with more metal being made…

Still breaking it in…

-Don

[cliffy]

If you haven't removed a suction filter before here is the secret-

It is in 2 pieces, the cap and the screen tube

You can't get the entire thing to come out or go in together in 1 piece

Remove the cap from the tube and then the tube will have room to come out of its hole. 

Make sure you check this screen

Now the hard part is to resafety wire the cap

When you go to remove it-

CUT THE WIRE OFF ------DON'T TRY TO TWIST IT TO BREAK IT All you will do is pull the hole out 

on the crankcase instead of breaking the safety wire. 

[PT20J]

When you replace the suction screen, be sure to use a new crush gasket, split side toward the engine and tighten 135 deg.

If it were mine, I’d borescope the cylinders. When mine made metal, a oil control ring broke and scored a cylinder. 

[toto]

22 hours ago, EricJ said:

As others have mentioned, checking the oil suction screen (which is separate from the pressure filter) is not a bad idea since it'll catch the really big chunks and will let you know if there's a bearing disintegrating or something.

My oil currently has about 1.5 hours on it. Would you drain the oil to check the screen, or fly it until the next oil change?

[toto]

21 hours ago, cliffy said:

If you haven't removed a suction filter before here is the secret-

It is in 2 pieces, the cap and the screen tube

You can't get the entire thing to come out or go in together in 1 piece

Remove the cap from the tube and then the tube will have room to come out of its hole. 

Make sure you check this screen

Now the hard part is to resafety wire the cap

When you go to remove it-

CUT THE WIRE OFF ------DON'T TRY TO TWIST IT TO BREAK IT All you will do is pull the hole out 

on the crankcase instead of breaking the safety wire. 

Do you happen to have pictures of this? I’ve tried to find some online but haven’t had much luck for the IO-360-A. 

[toto]

11 hours ago, PT20J said:

If it were mine, I’d borescope the cylinders. When mine made metal, an oil control ring broke and scored a cylinder. 

That was the reason for my cylinder replacement. The OCR broke and scored the cylinder wall. It didn’t look terrible at a glance, but it was beyond honing.

It turns out that my new cylinder is only 85 hours in (thought it was closer to 150, but I checked the log yesterday). It’s an overhauled chrome cylinder, which isn’t what I wanted - but was what the shop could get without waiting weeks or months for a new Lycoming cylinder. 

Talking to the shop that did the cylinder today, they said that the chrome cylinder does have cast iron rings, so it’s possible that that’s the source of the metal. 

I don’t want to do anything unnecessarily invasive to the engine, but I don’t want to do something stupid either. If there’s a reasonable chance that this is related to the 85-hour replacement cylinder, it would be good to know that. (This filter would have been used from ~35-85 hours on that cylinder fwiw.)

[cliffy]

Borescope it to see if there is any wear in the cylinder

[EricJ]

15 hours ago, toto said:

My oil currently has about 1.5 hours on it. Would you drain the oil to check the screen, or fly it until the next oil change?

Wait until the next oil change. 
 

14 hours ago, toto said:

Do you happen to have pictures of this? I’ve tried to find some online but haven’t had much luck for the IO-360-A. 

It's a miserable job.   I'd get your A&P to do it if you're not a masochist.

Here's a vid getting it out on a Mooney.   As previously noted, take the cap off first and then pull the screen out with a finger, otherwise there's not enough room to get it out on a Mooney.    In this vid it has a pre-heater, normally there's just a cap with a crush washer.  Immediately after this post is a vid showing reinstallation.   Safety wiring it is pain but the long wire twister tool makes it a bit easier.   I don't take the suction screen out unless there's a good reason to, since it is such a pita.   The videos are on page 3 of this thread.
 

14 hours ago, toto said:

That was the reason for my cylinder replacement. The OCR broke and scored the cylinder wall. It didn’t look terrible at a glance, but it was beyond honing.

It turns out that my new cylinder is only 85 hours in (thought it was closer to 150, but I checked the log yesterday). It’s an overhauled chrome cylinder, which isn’t what I wanted - but was what the shop could get without waiting weeks or months for a new Lycoming cylinder. 

Talking to the shop that did the cylinder today, they said that the chrome cylinder does have cast iron rings, so it’s possible that that’s the source of the metal. 

I don’t want to do anything unnecessarily invasive to the engine, but I don’t want to do something stupid either. If there’s a reasonable chance that this is related to the 85-hour replacement cylinder, it would be good to know that. (This filter would have been used from ~35-85 hours on that cylinder fwiw.)

That sounds like a reasonable theory, and a good reason to just monitor it to see whether it gets worse or better.   If the rings are just wearing in it might stop, and if you have good compression then it's not an issue.   If the wrong rings were installed for a chrome cylinder it might continue or compression might suffer.    Regardless, there's no reason to take things apart at this point, so just keep running it and keep an eye on things.

[joemoriss]

I just went through something similar this past summer prior to annual. I had two oil analyses come back with elevated iron and aluminum, with some flecks of metal picked up in the screen (I had the original screen at the time not a filter). With aluminum in the mix, I was pretty sure it was a piston pin plug which is apparently a fairly common issue. I got great advice from the very helpful Lycoming tech support line, and as others have said they did not recommend jumping to replacing parts or pulling a cylinder. I did send the metal for analysis and then discussed the results with Lycoming again, confirming my hypothesis that the aluminum could have come from the piston pin plug. Once in the ship, my mechanic scoped all the cylinders and we found the telltale "skid mark" pattern from a bad He was 50/50 on whether or not we needed to pull the cylinder right away, we agreed in the end to pull it while in annual and send for repair. The pin was visibly worn and the hole was slightly wallowed. The cylinder shop was fortunately able to repair the cylinder and piston for a very reasonable price, which made me happy we did the work now before it got worse. My next oil analysis was much better, with out the dreaded phone call from Blackstone that they do when your results spike. With 2.5 years of Mooney ownership under my belt I'm finally getting into the groove of being a maintenance manager. We also put in a proper oil filter while the plane was down.