If your engine has been in storage for some time simply filling it with normal engine oil, blocking the breather holes and turning it upside down before you fit it into the aircraft should keep enough oil on the cam provided you start the engine within a week or so.
My engine was started last week after 5 months. Oil mist was sprayed into the engine for a considerable time and the RH was 6% from my DIY dehydrator and I had dehydrator plugs fitted also. I’ll report back after the next 25 h oil change.
I am interested in how @kwlf is getting on with the oil filling method as it is very simple.
Let us know how many litres it took @kwif I considered this route to preserve my engine during my recent respray and mini renovation. At the moment the inside of my engine is 6% Relative Humidity and all engineering work should be finished next week. We plan to spray in Camguard using a shop compressor / fogging unit to try to get a mist of lube on the cam before the first start up in 4 months.
Does anyone have experience of Lyco roller tappets as in my replacement O-320 from 2009 and are they more / less prone to camshaft and follower corrosion and wear? Just wondering..
Will do… I have some gasket material.
I think the drop was faster than I would expect if it were just leaking past the cylinder. I wonder whether it was flowing down the pushrod tubes when I tilted the engine.
Should be a document from your engine manufacturer(if certified) explaining how to do it. You can probably if not certified as well.
Probably the oil is seeping past the piston rings into the combustion chambers. That will use up quite a bit more oil.
What you don’t want is it coming out of the inlet manifolds and flooding the fuel servo / carburretor. Eventually it will do that. So I would remove the carb etc and put a blanking plate there.
Hmmm…. 25 litres – which was all I could carry. It seemed to be nearly full, then the level dropped again. Being a taildragger in which I could lift and drop the tail, I did so a couple of times and I’m optimistic that I will have coated the cams and lifters. All other ports blocked. Breather tube blocked. I shall take another few bottles back later to finish filling it…
There has to be a better way.
Above post moved to a previous discussion.
Certainly filling completely with oil would do the job. You would need quite a lot of it though.
Filling an O320 with oil
Has anybody ever done this?
I have an aircraft which will not be flying for at least 3 months and I want to keep the engine safe from corrosion. Unfortunately the wings and tail have had to come off so I can’t even do any ground runs which limits my options somewhat. Unfortunately there’s no electricity supply so dessicators are not an option either.
The suggestion I’ve had has been to tilt the aircraft until the engine is level, then fill the crankcase with oil until full, then block the breather pipe.
I was thinking of using dessicator plugs for the cylinders then blocking the air intake and exhausts.
Anything else I should be aware of? I’ve found a few posts which mention installing sealing gaskets on various places, but they’re a bit vague. I can’t even find what volume of oil I’m likely to need.
