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Engine Preservation After Installing

mfleming

Well Known Member
Patron
I've searched and read quite a few preserving engine threads but I want to confirm my path forward.

My brand new Lycoming IO-360-XP58 arrived last spring. The engine sat in the sealed box until September 29th, 2021. The paperwork indicated the engine was preserved for 6 months and did not need inspection during that time period.

So the engines been out of the box and installed for about a month now.

  1. Am I to assume the engine internals are mostly protected as long as I don't drain the preservation oil or rotate the prop?
  2. Should I be borescoping the cylinders or taking some other measures to protect the engine?

Just as a data point, I live in a pretty dry area of Oregon and the build is in a heated garage.
 
Am I to assume the engine internals are mostly protected as long as I don't drain the preservation oil or rotate the prop?

Not sure why you would assume that. I would assume that the preservative is good for 6 months, as stated. Only Lyc can say whether that is conservative or not. That said, my engine sat for almost 6 months after assembly and everything is fine, at least as far as I know. 225 hours and burns very little oil.
 
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I just totally filled mine with oil until I could not get any more in there. And kept drying out the spark plug engine dehydrators when the beads changed color, which typically took about 2 weeks. "Sealed" the throttle body and the exhaust pipes.

I'm in a moist area, and thankfully when I checked after draining the oil, no corrosion that I could see with a borescope.
 
I just totally filled mine with oil until I could not get any more in there. And kept drying out the spark plug engine dehydrators when the beads changed color, which typically took about 2 weeks. "Sealed" the throttle body and the exhaust pipes.

I'm in a moist area, and thankfully when I checked after draining the oil, no corrosion that I could see with a borescope.

Where did you get the spark plug dehydrators? Mine came from the factory with regular plugs.]
EDIT: Found them on ACS...
 
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Lycoming answers the question of preservation

Today I spoke to Lycoming technical support about the care of the engine after removing it from the sealed bag but before the first start.

Since there are no Service Instructions covering this scenario, their advice was to follow the 60 day borescope routine called out in SI-1481B. They also felt that installing dehydrator spark plugs would be advisable.

So thats what I'm going to do, install dehydrator plugs and every 60 days do a borescope inspection.

The also mentioned that the service instructions were written for worse case scenario in ultra humid environments. To me, living in a relatively dry environment and following the 60 day routine, I should be fairly safe from corrosion.
 
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Shell makes an Aeroshell 2XN preservation oil that you can spray into your cylinders and crankcase in addition to dessicant plugs. Small quantities difficult to find but I bought a gallon from Aerosport in Kamloops BC
https://www.shell.com/business-cust...centre/technical-talk/techart09-30071425.html

Sounds like a good idea once I've run the engine and need to put back in storage mode. For now, Lycoming say's the engine has been internally preserved and I just need to keep an eye out for moisture.
 
Sounds like a good idea once I've run the engine and need to put back in storage mode. For now, Lycoming say's the engine has been internally preserved and I just need to keep an eye out for moisture.

Either that or try to save the first engine start until closer to first flight. I was 20 days from start to flight test.
 
Thanks for starting a thread about this, Michael. Reminds me that I've been pretty lax about my own engine since it arrived a little over a year ago. I basically installed it on the airplane immediately after it arrived, but have not done anything to keep it preserved since then. The preservative oil has mostly drained out due to the various plugs that get removed during the course of installing everything. I had planned to use those desiccator plugs, but every time I think about it, I think to myself, well it won't be long until engine start, do I really need to? Now it's been over a year. Sounds like it might be appropriate to have a look through a borescope before starting the engine for the first time, just to be safe.
 
Thanks for starting a thread about this, Michael. Reminds me that I've been pretty lax about my own engine since it arrived a little over a year ago. I basically installed it on the airplane immediately after it arrived, but have not done anything to keep it preserved since then. The preservative oil has mostly drained out due to the various plugs that get removed during the course of installing everything. I had planned to use those desiccator plugs, but every time I think about it, I think to myself, well it won't be long until engine start, do I really need to? Now it's been over a year. Sounds like it might be appropriate to have a look through a borescope before starting the engine for the first time, just to be safe.

The Lycoming tech I talked to thought the dehydrator spark plug we’re helpful in absorbing moisture to a degree but we’re mainly to indicate that moisture was present and action should be taken.

Recently there was a post on VAF from someone who successfully borescoped their camshaft….I need to find that post…
 
You may want to look into building an engine dehumidifier that circulates dry air from the dipstick tube through a bed of desiccant and back into the crankcase vent. This will keep the engine at 10-15% humidity, ensuring no internal corrosion. Super easy to build. Details below.
https://vansairforce.net/community/showthread.php?t=157922

Tom.
RV-7.

Very good idea. I use one of these "black max engine savers" which does not require having to dry the desiccant beads.

https://flyingsafer.com/2065

It's avail in 220v as well.
 
Is this rust?

My dehydrator plugs came in today and since I was pulling the top plugs I thought I'd borescope the cylinders.

I'm new to using the borescope...had a hard time getting the camera to focus or point to something I recognized :rolleyes:

Anyway, this photo is in the #1 cylinder looking back at a valve. moving the camera makes a huge difference in the colors one sees but this looks like it could be rust. It also could be just brown from test stand run.

Any experienced borescope eyeballs out there??

This engine was delivered six months ago and has been out of the sealed bag 30 days.
 

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It doesn't look like corrosion to me. I am no expert but would be more concerned about corrosion on cylinder walls and cam shaft. There is no way to see the cam shaft. I would find a cylinder where the piston stroke is near the bottom (nearest to the case) and see what the cylinder wall looks like. I would not move the prop.
 
It doesn't look like corrosion to me. I am no expert but would be more concerned about corrosion on cylinder walls and cam shaft. There is no way to see the cam shaft. I would find a cylinder where the piston stroke is near the bottom (nearest to the case) and see what the cylinder wall looks like. I would not move the prop.

The cylinder walls I could see were nice and oily...as a matter of fact, those valves looked oily too.
 
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