Leaking Line

The leaking oil pressure line & Epoxy repairs:

The aircraft was in our shop for an autopilot installation. The customer had just purchased this older Cessna and was trying to resolve some outstanding problems. The customer asked us to look into a small oil leak, the rudder pedals always had oil on them.

We traced the oil leak to a worn out oil line that routed oil pressure from a firewall fitting to the back of the oil pressure gauge. This aluminum line had two chaffed areas in it and an interesting field repair using wire and epoxy. The general shop consensus was it probably took the person more time to make the epoxy repair than it would have to just replace the line. We removed the faulty line and installed a new line and the problem was solved.

While checking the oil pressure line, we inspected the oil temp sender on the engine. The area around oil the temp sender was wet with fresh oil.. Someone had taken a piece of aluminum foil and rapped it around the sender body, then coated the foil with epoxy. We assumed this was done to repair the oil leak.

Oil pressure line from firewall to oil pressure gauge.

Close up of epoxy/wire repair to oil pressure line. (why would someone do this?)

Front right side of engine. Oil temperature sender has aluminum foil pushed over it with epoxy.