Cam Plug Leak
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 10:39 pm
I pulled my motor originally thinking the oil leak was the common rear main seal. It did appear that the rear main seal was leaking a bit, but as I degreased the back of the engine thoroughly, I found a pinhole sized leak in the cam plug. I unfortunately have the old plastic/rubber type cam plug. Because it seems absurd to tear apart a perfectly good running motor to replace a failed paper thin plastic plug with another likely inadequate one that still isn't serviceable without unnecessary invasive repairs, I decided to try a different approach. I decided to fabricate an aluminum cap that seals the existing plug and folds around the flanges of the case halves to increase the contact area for adhesion as well as create a far more reliable barrier to contain the oil. I attached it with the same high temp RTV that the rear main seal called for and then applied a liberal amount around the edges of the cap I made. It still retained clearance (about 2-2.5mm) between the cap and the bolt heads on the flywheel. I'll be doing several hours of test flying directly above the field and pulling my cowling to see if my idea works out, so I'll report back as to what the results are, hopefully in the next week or 2. Here are some photos of what I found and the cap I made.