Diagnosing High Oil Consumption

Savvy maintenance expert Mike Busch discusses troubleshooting techniques for pinpointing the cause of elevated oil consumption in piston aircraft engines. Savvy Aviation offers Professional Maintenance Services to owners of General Aviation aircraft, such as: Savvy Mx (Professional Maintenance Management), Savvy QA (Expert Consulting), Savvy Prebuy, SavvyAnalysis (Engine Data Analysis) and Savvy Breakdown Assistance. For more info see savvyaviation.com and www.sportys.com/pilotshop/spor.... This channel offers videos about those services, and webinars hosted by Mike Busch which were produced by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and sponsored by Aircraft Spruce and Specialty.

[@jasonvanevery5594]

Thanks Mike for sharing the wisdom. My partner with the 182H (470R) with channel chrome cylinders has expressed concern about 1qt/5hours oil consumption. I can again tell him again that’s what they do.

[@jimczerwinski4951]

I had a 310 R ferried from theUS to Australia. The first leg to Honolulu grounded the aircraft due to high oil consumption. A top overhaul was done there before continuing. The Ferry Pilot declared an emergency again inbound to Brisbane because he had to shut down the same engine due to loss of oil pressure. On arrival at my place I noted that the engine had been top overhauled in the US due to high oil consumption. The problem turned out to be a leaking prop’ seal. We wrapped a rag around an air hose and directed high pressure air into the oil filler. We could hear air escaping from the prop hub at a great rate. The sump was being pressurised and the oil was blowing out of the breather in flight. Simple fix, replaced the prop seal. No more problems.

[@englishclive]

1:04:10
W100 has anti scuff.
Wording in spec on Shell’s website is:
Protects highly stressed engine parts from scuffing.

[@gmcjetpilot]

Yep Lycoming I run under 6qts. If you fill to 8qts it spits out the first two quckly. I let it get below 5.5 qts and put 0.5 qts in at a time.

[@gmcjetpilot]

Air oil separator is fine IF you route the oil gunk into a catch bottle and dump it, vs route it back into the engine. It does reduce the belly mess a little.

[@wiledmanrandall]

Cam guard has been known to reduce oil consumption in the case of dirty rings in an O-470-U.

[@ukrsindicat]

Can you just use a pressure/vacuum gauge to check the crankcase pressure? I don’t have old altimeter or airspeed indicator laying around

[@christarves167]

Is oil consumption based on air time or flght time?

[@cujet]

At 19:30, the claim is made that anything over 90 MPH on the "Altimiter" is excessive. Maybe we should use the words "Airspeed Indicator" if we are going to use an aircraft flight instrument to measure operational crankcase pressure.

[@ele4853]

Did I hear Mike say "intake valve seal" letting oil be sucked into the combustion chamber? I have no recollection of any Lycoming intake vale seal. Did I get this right?

[@jasonvanevery5594]

Certain Continental models such as my O470R has elastic valve guide seals as standard equipment. Not all 470s have them.

[@haydnchandler5890]

Where do i find the ring wash procedure online? Thanks

[@savvyaviation]

Haydn, you can read more about the procedure here: www.euroga.org/forums/maintenance-avionics/4604-removing-sludge-from-piston-rings-high-oil-consumption

[@williamschwab3384]

How do you read 90 MPH on an ALTIMETER?

[@gmcjetpilot]

His slide was wrong and he misspoke. He meant to say airspeed indicator. It's in the video.

[@martinda7446]

@@gmcjetpilot Corrected about ten times too... Geez! 😺