Posted for "john wright" <n338l@gbronline.com>:

I just returned from having my iv-p inspected by Ron Gregory in San Diego.
Ron does one of  the most thorough inspections that I have seen so far. For
those of you who remember, he also did a dead stick landing with a Yankee's
baseball player/owner's iv-p on a San Diego freeway and didn't scratch the
airplane. Anyone who can do that automatically has my respect.  He found
several things missed during my August annual. Specifically, where the oil
breather tube (the big black rubber thing coming off the oil return system)
joins the exhaust pipe on the pilot's side there is a frequent problem I
will bet almost all iv-p's flying out there have. Ron points out that in
order for the engine exhaust pipe to fit into the iv-p, Lancair moves the
location of the breather tube attachment  forward up the pipe about 5 or 6
inches and rewelds it there. There is a lot more heat at that location which
promotes the oil  cooking in the end of the breather tube where it form's a
thick black cake of cooked oil.  In my case with nearly 800 hrs on the
airplane, that breather tube has never been inspected or cleaned out.  It
was about 80% occluded! Like coronary artery disease everything is ok until
total occlusion occurs.  Once it is totally occluded pressure will build up
inside the engine and the weakest link then fails which happens to be the
crank seal at the front of the engine.  Ron is aware of at least one pilot
that this happened to resulting in instant IMC  / oil covering the
windscreen causing major pilot coronary and sphincter pucker. I am passing
this on to encourage others flying long enough to encounter this problem to
pull your cowling off and check your breather tube.  Its such a simple fix!

John Wright