Engine breather line

[William Mattson]

I'm still trying to locate a small oil leak that drips down on my front tire. Looking at the piper service letter 370 on Comanche gear, I found a diagram for the engine breather line. Mine starts off the same way but ends at what is best described as an air/oil seperator with no return to the engine. This device has holes on top to let the air out.

Now my question is if the plane owner, me, didn't drain the water out of the bottom until today, might that of caused enough pressure to have oil pushed out a loose hose at top the breather line?

Thank you.

Bill

[Ray B]

Bill the best answer is, it might! Finding oil leaks can be a bugger. The more obvious leaks can usually be spotted by washing the engine down with cleaning solvent using a syphon type pressure nozzle. Then start the engine do a run up, shut it down, get a good flash light and start looking for those shinny oil spots and streaks. It may help to blow a bit of white powder on suspected areas. Good luck! Ray B

[Don Nelson]

Bill, Don't mean to scare you but the only time in more than 2000 hours in 250's that I had oil leak onto the nose tire, it was from the base of #1 cylinder. That was when the front crankshaft bearing failed on an IMC climb out, resulting in the loss of propellor control and it's overspeed.
Apparently the oil that should have been going to the governor, went into the crankcase and thereby overpressurizing it.

Anyway, I'd say have a good look at the front cylinder bases. The white powder sounds like a good idea.
Good luck,
Don

[William Mattson]

I found a small tear in the elbow on the oil breather line. The oil comes down the landing gear springs and drops onto the tire. I want for a 3 hour trip Monday. When I got back I was sure I'd find my oil down by two quarts by the amount of oil I cleaned up, but I could not notice any appreciable difference.

I will go out and take a good look around the cylinders tonight.