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    Jul 2011
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    Asking advice on continental engine at annual?

    My 1988 Be 36 TC is in for annual. The engine is Cont TSIO 520 UB, about 800 hours on it.

    In the oil change we found some metal in the filter, not much, but more than a trace. It is all the same, about 10 small iron or steel spikes or slivers, they are perhaps 1/32 of an inch long and half that wide. They taper from a bigger base to a point, like a spike. They are sort of sharp sided, not round, and are magnetic, and just dark in color like the oil. There is no aluminum flakes or bearing metal or bronze,no polished or chrome, just these things. We did an oil analysis but don't have the results back yet. I don't expect the analysis to show much as these are too large to make it through the oil filter.

    My A & P has 40 years experience and is not sure what they are. It could be a tappet or a gear, he doesn't think it is from a camshaft.

    The standby backup generator is worn out, even though it still works, but there no evidence of the gear of where it mounts missing any metal.

    Any good advice or educated guess? A full overhaul is $42,000, and I don't want to do it just on guess work. He suggests flying another 20 hours and then checking the filter again.

    I may also try sending some of the metal itself into be checked by Cont or the oli analysis people, neither of which do I have complete beliefe in.

    Compression is good, he did find ignition timing was about 2 * off. It starts and runs well.

    Thanks
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 09-11-2012 at 02:42 PM.

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