Ed Kollin explains Aircraft Engine Oil

hello everyone this is one of my videos from airventure 2021. during airventure i had the chance to sit down with ed collin from camguard and i learned a lot about oil and oil additives a lot of things i didn't know before only knew superficially i hope you enjoyed this conversation fair warning it was a little noisy that morning so we had a lot of noise from airplanes and helicopters flying overhead because well it was adventure here we go [Music] [Applause] hello everyone it's airventure 2021 well glad to be back here and this morning i have the pleasure of sitting with uh ed collin from kamgard a gentleman who knows more about engine oils than uh than most of us do um mr collin thank you for joining me here today uh maybe we'll start with a brief introduction uh i'm curious where i grew up and and where when and how in your life you became so interested in engine lubricants which ultimately led you to where you are today well thank you for for allowing me this opportunity um i grew up in detroit and was a gear head since i could walk so i took apart cars i took apart everything and much to my parents dismay but i ended up after college i went right to work for general motors research and very interested in chemistry of fuels lubricants and how the engine worked with them and how they affected performance i got hired away from general motors by exxon research after working there for five years and went out to new jersey and was there for uh 20 years where i ran i developed and ran the engine laboratory at corporate research in the advanced field lubricants group so i had um an entire playground i mean i had a wonderful facility tremendous budgets and a lot of freedom to to experiment and and test and develop new additives and formulations and such so it's it was a really a dream job for me to have this um a an acquaintance a friend of mine who worked for an affiliate company at exxon asked me if i would be interested in working on exxon's brand new piston aviation oil didn't have a name became the elite and i said sure i mean i'm playing owner pilot and um love to work on that and i did the initial research on on that product did the initial marketing study on the product um and presented exxon usa with the formulation for that product uh they looked at it said it was nice said it was way too expensive way too exotic and thank you very much they went on to copy the aeroshell product with a few minor tweaks that could be used for marketing purposes but it was a good oil not what i would have done but um so during that uh that research period i went around to different shops and and and different companies so i went to continental i went to like homing and um different engine shops and everybody told me that i needed to go down to aircraft specialty services they see more parts steel parts than anybody else in the world okay so i called greg merrell the owner and explained that i was working on the new piston aviation oil for exxon and could i come down and see him look at parts and talk to him about his impressions and his opinions about what would be needed in that oil or a oil and he invited me down for a weekend and we looked at lots of parts and had i had a great time together we became good friends at that point and um we looked at probably a thousand parts over the weekend and i i know that he was shocked um i was surprised he was shocked because he sees these parts every day but when 90 plus percent of the red tag parts were inspected it was discovered that corrosion rust was responsible for the fact that that was now red tag part and had failed and could not be resurrected so i took that information back to exxon and that that's where i um uh put together my formulation when and rust protection was like number one two and three out of ten for importance to make sure that that i had that covered other aspects were cleanliness anti-wear everybody knows that airplane engines leak a lot of oil and such so so i wanted to see if i could address that with seal conditioners and keep the engines dry so um when exxon decided to go uh with the aeroshell clone uh greg asked me um if i could produce something for general aviation as a matter sure and so i produced it and we we all used it um for uh four or five years in the in in the late 90s and um very successfully and everybody was quite happy with it um and then in 2001 i just left exxon to go off as a consultant and uh greg asked me if i wanted to commercialize the product i said yeah that that would be great but i felt more comfortable reformulating it so i didn't use any of the technical information or additives that i had developed for the axon elite so just to be on the safe side so i took a year um to develop cam guard um it actually worked out really well because some of the additives i had chosen for the elite were no longer available and um i found other additives that were higher performance for what i was trying to achieve so it worked out really really well and we started selling here at oshkosh in 2001 we went into a tent out here um uh with a friend of greg's and uh just sort of set up a table and talked to people that came into the tent and had a little poster outside some people came in and you know i i'd talk to them for an hour and maybe they'd buy a bible or maybe not but it was just an introduction and then uh the following year greg bought um booths inside one of the buildings and uh set up both for aircraft specialties and cam guard so we had double booth and that was really the first exposure um to the main crowd of our product and uh you know we talked to people for half an hour or 60 minutes and maybe sell them a bottle maybe a four pack but it was a lot of education and um but people were really really interested because they realized i kind of knew what i was talking about and had the the credentials to to justify and what what we were doing fascinating which leads me to my next question i'm an i'm a pilot i'm an aircraft owner fly a bonanza with an io 550 i know i need oil in my engine i don't need to change the oil i know oil temperature is supposed to be in a certain range but i really don't know much about how oil does what it does and what is a pilot an aircraft owner i can do to to help the oil get the job done can you maybe talk a little bit about you know what what are the objectives what the purposes of oil inside the the engine sure and um maybe from a pilot's perspective or aircraft owner's perspective okay um first i'll i'll be a little more technical uh just what do what does oil do in the engine so it lubricates um and there's different kinds of lubrication there's film lubrication where the parts don't actually touch but it rides on are separated by an oil film called the hydrodynamic is the technical term for it then you have a metal to metal contact and you need to lubricate that interface and that's a cam and lifter for example and uh that's referred to boundary lubrication um oh let me say the hydrodynamic lubrication is found in main bearings rod bearings and journals and uh then you there are certain areas of cylinders for example sort of run between the two and and hit both uh as the pistons go up and down and the piston rings um uh move fast and then they stop and then reverse direction so the the regime changes um every stroke right um the the next uh really important aspect particularly in our aircraft engines is um that's the mechanism by which heat is drawn out of the engine and uh so it goes into the oil um it's splashed on the back sides of the pistons which are well over 400 degrees and it it is absorbed into the oil and then the oil is pumped and goes through an oil cooler so it releases that that heat to the air and keeps the engine alive the next thing it does is um it suspends contaminants and that's where aircraft engines vary dramatically from their other sparking mission counterparts i refer to aircraft engines as contamination limited so that's the real reason you change oil in aircraft engines not because the oil breaks down but because it is so contaminated and it's contaminated with what is called blow-by blow-by is that gas that squirts by the piston rings um during the compression and power stroke of each four-stroke cycle so if you have a continental 550 that burning maybe 14 15 gallons per hour you realize that your engine puts six eight ten ounces of fuel into the oil every hour that's a tremendous amount of stuff just think about that so a quartz 32 ounces but every hour you're putting another eight ounces of liquid junk into your oil and i assume that's for a good engine with with that working rings that correct okay yeah so that's a lot of contamination yes most of it goes right out the breather um so it doesn't cause any harm but there's a small amount of it that's partially reacted um and i can go through that process i'm not sure it's really necessary it's available on our website uh videos of of this process that the the the combusting fuel um the reactive fuel that gets forced into the crankcase continues to react in the crankcase and does not go out the breather that stuff and it's only we're talking thimble fulls of of of fuel that causes virtually all the problems in general aviation aircraft it causes the the acids um that acidify the water that's in there that that promotes corrosion it is responsible for virtually all the deposits that we see in the engines so that stuff is really really terrible um the last thing that the oil is responsible for is keeping the seals which keep the oil in the engine so it protects the seals and lubricates the seals so they can do their sealing job and keeping keeping the oil where it belongs on the inside the engine as opposed to letting it leak out um so those are the four uh properties of oil um and it does that in every engine but it's it it's a little bit different um for an aircraft engine because of the the heat aspect it's so much more important and if in a city correctly you mentioned that the contaminants that that is something that is particularly bad with aircraft engines how are automotive engines different do they have the same problem or if not why not yeah automotive engines i do not have that same problem um the reason that aircraft engines do have that problem is because they are air-cooled and air-cooled engines the parts uh have to um operate over a very wide temperature range they have different materials steel and aluminum so when you're combining different materials and an engine that is not temperature controlled you have to build in a lot of clearances to protect the for example the piston if the aluminum piston grows too much with heat and the steel cylinder doesn't if you don't have enough clearance it gets trapped and captured by the by the cylinder so you have to make that um uh loose enough that it works but as you make it looser you you you allow more contamination into the oil okay so if you were to look at and again this is on our website also we have a cutaway of a lycoming and it was complements of blood coming to let us use this by combing piston cylinder and the cutaway cylinder with the piston at the bottom dead center it almost planks around it's so loose and then with the choke and the taper in the cylinder it tightens up but at uh room temperature or below there's huge amounts of clearance and then they tightens up as they warms up so that's the the biggest difference between an automotive engine and aircraft engine automotive engines they're water cooled much more tight tightly controlled temperatures by having that temperature control you can tighten up all the clearances and the tolerances for both engines might be the same but the clearances are dramatically different that makes sense and that intuitively makes it clear to me why oil changes are so important because all these contaminants end up in the oil and i bet at some point the capacity for the oil to absorb more is reached and then it has to be changed is that how i should think about it exactly and and and you've used exactly the right term because people talk about synthetic base oils or synthetic oils and the synthetic oils that that were exposed to in aviation and cars is only one small aspect of one small one type of synthetic oil there are lots of synthetic oils and we've had problems with synthetic oils in aircraft use because they're the wrong synthetic bay stocks the wrong synthetic oils they cannot withstand any contamination okay that's the problem mineral-based stocks tolerate and and and and help the dispersant keep all this contamination in suspension whereas the synthetic oils can't people think oh it's the lead particles lead bromide particles that the problem no it's the fuel components that's the problem once the dispersant is used up because the dispersive job its only job is to grab onto partially combusted fuel molecules in the oil the contaminants that get in the oil and grab onto them hold them in suspension until you drain the oil it doesn't grab dirt it doesn't grab metal particles it doesn't grab it doesn't interfere with the break-in it doesn't doesn't really interact with the metal very much um its only job is to to to go after these these uh partially reacted fuel molecules okay or oil molecules in the case of car engines because car engines go very much longer oil change intervals right than aircraft as a pilot i've also heard that oil temperature is is important uh and the standard needs to have it needs to be warm enough so that water can uh we can get rid of water i i don't understand exactly how that process works so maybe there's more to it than than simply boiling it out can you talk a little bit about that and so what is is it something that's too hard too cold what's a good range to run in we have oil temperature gauges in our aircraft but there are lots of oil temperatures um depending on where you do that measurement so if you measured in the sump it'll be one temperature if you measure it at the output of the oil cooler it'll be considerably lower right at the input of the oil cooler it'll be 25 to 35 degrees hotter so it's important to understand where the temperature is measured in the system absolutely and once you know where it is it's really consistency is what you're looking for the oil temperature determines how much water will be dissolved actually dissolved in the oil so it reaches an equilibrium depending on the overall average temperature of that oil remember i said that the undersides of the piston are over you know 400 to 450 degrees well water hits that and flashes right away well you don't have to run very long um to flash off all that water except the water has to travel through the rest of the engine and hit cold metal parts where it condenses again goes back into the oil so you have to get up and fly your aircraft let it reach equilibrium and that will minimize for your aircraft every aircraft the amount of water in the crankcase and and the oil the water that's dissolved in that oil so the the numbers um can be a little tricky again because of the location of the oil temperature probe but you you'd like to see your oil temperature average um 180 to 210 oil temperatures below that the the the water equilibrium is too high and um we tend to see more corrosion and that's uh in fahrenheit or yes and uh oil temperatures uh much above 220 degrees as it is approaching red line for most manufacturers and you start to see uh decreases in um viscosity which is reflected by oil pressure so you know and you can actually observe this every flight you can see your oil temperature change with your slightly increasing in oil temperature right so um which is just something to keep an eye on the green art or the green area for most aircraft seems to be about 180 to to to 210 to 15 range when i fly in the winter i usually have trouble to get it to that range uh and i i heard i've not done this myself i heard some people use tape to partially block off the the air inlet of the oil cooler do you think that's a good idea um depending on how cool you you can some aircraft have have uh oil cooler doors that they can open and close like cow flaps um those are very handy other people have kits that they put on winterization kits that basically are something a piece of metal sheet metal that blocks the all or part of the oil cooler but bolted in place and very nicely done um and then the rest of us uh that that do make some changes yeah we go to the aviation department of home depot and and uh get the some aluminum tape and uh and tape off part of the oil cooler to keep our oil temperatures up and that gets dropped on you yeah another tip that i've heard uh curious if you have an opinion is that after each flight i should remove the oil filler cap and dipstick and allow water vapor to escape while the engine is still hot is that a good idea with corrosion and weight anything that helps get the water out of the crankcase is a good idea um how much water you know if you you do that i take my dipstick out and i take my oil cap off um the oil cap is an inch and a half diameter so you see some vapor coming off of that and i put a piece of cold metal over that one time to see how much water it was and it was quite a bit so i mean was it a couple milliliters i don't know if it was that much but um getting it out is important um and i i i always see it out of both the oil dipstick tube and the oil fill tube so i do it routinely and leave the doors open until i'm getting ready to leave the airport and close it again okay changing gears just a little bit when i get fuel i i care about how much it costs of course but i i i never pay attention to where it comes from which which which company are there differences and in particular with the news that we heard here recently on unleaded fuel is there something that we should know as aircraft owners that in the context of our conversation well with regards to leaded ab gas there are only a few manufacturers and they're held to a very tight specification and i've only seen a few problems caused by incorrectly made fuel and and those were corrosion issues the pistons turned to white fluff but that was unusual and it's only been two times in 30 years that was a quality control issue exactly the lead scavenger problem as far as the the the new unleaded fuel avgas i assisted in that development of the technical assistance to george brawley and the gambi people i've talked to them for several years about fuels and what they're trying to do and help them in any way that i could and um i i i'm thrilled that they finally got the faa to realize what they were doing and what they did and and to prove it and now we're going through the stc process but as far as i know and what i've seen there is no downside at all to using that kind of fuel what's the price point going to be i have no idea uh we'll just have to see uh you know how things develop and you know hopefully it'll be about the same price might be a little bit more especially initially but you know that's it's so exciting because the effect that that will have on the engines the maintenance um the oil they're all all very positive so i'm looking forward to that and of course we cannot end this conversation without talking a little bit about the product that you invented formulated cam guard uh we we all know a little more about what what oil is supposed to do now how does cam guard help what problems can i avoid cam guard can be thought of as the additive package that should be in the oil the faa and engine companies work very differently than any other engine manufacturer governing body for oils the faa regulations are based on an old military specification that basically says use this thick stuff and as long as it doesn't do any harm you're fine whereas car oils have to meet performance standards well i was trained in in car oil formulation truck oil formulation marine engine formulation and we always formulated for performance uh two performance specifications and you can just pass the specification or you can wirelessly pass the specification depends how much money you want to spend either way you pass and you get the yeah yeah so so if you're in a competitive field you go for the just pass to stay competitive but if you're in high performance um want high performance products yeah you're willing to pay that and if you have the market um and and you can demonstrate the performance difference it becomes a very very easy sale kamgard is designed to do four things one of those things when the engine's not being used it protects it from rust and corrosion the other three is when you are using the engine when you're flying so it protects your investment whether you're flying or not it protects against deposits which are almost as hard on the engine as rust and corrosion and cause a lot of a lot of premature uh maintenance and are these deposits is that part of the uh contaminants that you talked about earlier or it all comes from the contaminants small amount of contaminants that i described but where those deposits form are different they can form in the ring zone it's primarily why large bore continentals suffer from premature loss of compressions starting anywhere from 400 hours and you can also have valve sticking problems as people see with small lycomins any actually some of the larger lycomings also in robinson helicopters come to mind um i have to do the valve wobble test because of carbon carbonaceous deposits in the valve guides and so they drop the valve down a little bit and wiggle it back and forth and if it doesn't wiggle it's full of carbon you have to drop the valve and ream the valve guide so those deposits can can cause cause a lot of problems you stick a valve the valve bends a push rod you'd lose all your oil you can lose your engine even worse so um definitely a big problem cam guard has a very strong anti-wear package it's actually more effective than the zinc anti-wear that are in car oils although we don't use zinc we don't use zinc in any of our products it is anti-wear designed specifically for use in aircraft using aircraft oils the last thing is seal conditioning i mentioned the seals before with time and temperature seals tend to harden first of all they set and so they take on the dimensions that they're allowed to and then they harden and when they harden um they tend to weep a little oil the steel conditioners and cam guard prevent that hardening or if they are hardened they recondition the seals to put them back in their supple soft squishy confirmation and continue to work as their independent should cam guard be added along with an oil change or anytime i i add a little oil if it's slow or what's what's the best way to make sure i have the right amount of cam guard in the engine yes cam guard if it's thought of as the additive package then you add five percent or 1.6 ounces per quart of oil at oil change so the bottle 16 oz bottle is that size and i use that size because that's fits my engine okay so so it was i put in nine quarts or nine and a half quarts of oil one pint of cam guard brings me up to 10 quarts of oil and then um in a case of oil uh i'll have a couple of quarts left over i take the tops off fill up the dead air volume on each court fill it up with cam guard put the caps back on shake them up mark cg and throw them in the back of the plane uh stand them up in the back of the plane in case they leak um but uh i have oil with cam guard makeup there when i need it yeah so and i've actually given away quarts of oil people that need it and i said well how's cam got in oh good because i already used camera and i don't have it so yeah that's a that's a very convenient point yeah yeah makes it easy yes we all know that flying an airplane more hours per year is is good right engines like to to operate planes don't like to sit on the ground uh what what's a good shall we say minimum number of hours that an engine should operate a year to uh to protect its its value and to to keep it healthy and what's your observation been of um how how pilots and aircraft owners actually reach or don't reach that number there really isn't a number uh i'd say it's more the frequency of use that that i think is important if you can fly um you know every couple of weeks all year round your your engines your plane and your engine in particular is going to benefit um but but you know life happens um and people can't can't fly and and don't like to fly in the wintertime and the planes are out and the ice and snow and you know just that's the way it is um so yes you want cam guard in there you want to preheat and i really want the opportunity appreciate the opportunity to talk to people about preheating their airplanes great idea except when they plug their heaters in 24 hours a day seven days a very controversial topic very controversial but aircraft specialties rebuild starter adapters on continentals and we will rebuild a lot of them most of them are the ones that come in all rusted are the ones that have been plugged in 24 7. so we have lots of proof demonstrating that yes you say that the engine's warm to the touch all the time blankets on top but how come your starter adapter is rusted whatever the reason it's from you have the correlation that that happens to energies that are constantly on a heater and um it does not happen when they're in heated hangers so that strengthens the correlation so so operated regularly every every week every couple of weeks and i assume that means to to fly right not not just taxiing around because some people yes and that's more harmful than helpful because you end up starting the engine when you burn a gallon of fuel you make a gallon of water most of it goes right out the breather and the exhaust system but you put it into the crankcase unless that crankcase is really hot oil's hot pistons are hot you're all doing is collecting that water you're not vaporizing and sending it out of the engine so it's not a good idea to create to turn the prop it's not a good idea to start the engine and run it up for 15 minutes or whatever or taxi around if you're gonna start it start it preheat it start it fly it and then uh that much much better for the for the for the plane and for your pilot skills good to know yes well mr khan thank you for spending part of your morning with me today i learned a lot about oil and that i didn't know when i woke up this morning and i hope you learned something from this as well and uh hope you enjoyed this conversation see you in the next video bye-bye bye-bye thank you very much thank you sir [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Martin Pauly

Views: 19,659

Keywords: ed kollin, Edward kollin, oil, engine oil, motor oil, aircraft oil, camguard, kollin camguard, engine lubrication, engine oil explained, airplane oil, aircraft engine, piston engine, lubrication

Id: Ia-zgGr2pKg

Length: 41min 12sec (2472 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 10 2021