Hi Joel;
I have not had that experience but it’s not a common one.
Obviously, something is out of spec (shaft worn or rough, housing loose on the Garlock, etc.) so it seems to me to be just a case of looking closely at the components.
Did the Garlock fit snugly into the housing; please don’t take this personally but is the Garlock installed correctly; does the shaft the Garlock lip rides against appear worn or rough? either of which would allow oil to flow past the seal.
The only other thing that could cause this is excessive crankcase pressures due to blow by past the rings.
What is the oil consumption?? Is the engine blowing a lot of oil out the breather onto the belly?
Although this refers to a Continental Service bulletin, it does provide a method of measuring crankcase pressures.
“CMI Service Bulletin M89-9 outlines a test to determine if there’s
excessive combustion pressure blow-by past the compression rings.
This test consists of reading the crankcase pressure by connecting a
water manometer or an airspeed indicator (the bulletin specifies a mph
gauge) to an outlet that accesses crankcase pressure. The outlet can be
the oil filler tube via a field-modifed oil flller cap, or a timing plug.
CMI recommends that the crankcase breather tube and any air/
oil separator be disconnected (either can provide a false reading if
partially or wholly clogged) prior to the test.
For this test 40 mph equals 0.79 inch of water and 44 mph equals
1.0 inch of water. Small-bore Continental engines such as the A and
C series, O-200, O-300, and IO-346 have an upper blow-by limit of
44 mph.
Big bore engines such as the IO- and TSIO-360; the O-, IO-, and
TSIO-470; and the 520 and 550 series engine have an upper blow-by
limit of 90 mph or 4.0 inches of water.
If your blow-by numbers are greater than these limits, it’s important to realize that this number, like compression numbers, is
influenced by dynamic factors such as hours on the oil, engine temperature when the tests were taken, and compression and oil control
ring rotation.”
Please let me know what you find,
Steve
