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Saturday, 2 October 2021

2 stroke engine leaking oil..?

I have finally had my first true Simoninin Victor 2 issue

Since some time I have had an issue with my Victor 2 leaking oil… Problem is that it is a 2 stroke engine running on premix so there is no oil to leak… and still I had drops of oil forming on the lower parts on the engine. 

Where did the oil come from? It was not any large quantities and I could not see a source of the oil leak when the engine was running. But still I had oil smeared all over at landing and drops forming on the lowest part of the engine.

After reading a post on a 2 stroke Facebook page about someone who had burnt the cylinder gaskets due to insufficient cooling and had an "oil leak" as a result I thought I should at least verify - and there it was, not burnt but "aspired" gaskets!


Note how the gasket is deformed and on the right hand side there is about 1 mm gasket width while on the left side the gasket is no longer covering the gap. The gaskets have been aspired into the cylinder. Didn't know that was a thing...

On the other cylinder the left hand side is has a gap where a part of the gasket has completely disappeared while the other side is intact.

I have since heard from another Victor 2 owner who had experienced the same thing. 
And Simonini must have known about the issue as they replied "you must use between cylinders and gaskets Arexon packing seal putty or Loctite 3020".

I have installed new gaskets, with the appropriate Loctite product, and the issue appears resolved. Due to the heat of the cylinders the oil did not stay near the source of the leak so while it was easy to fix it was hard to find...