With less than 400 operating hours on my 624 I notice the gear box oil is dark in color. The oil analysis shows the oil is fine and is well under condemning limits but the oil is almost black in color. I also have noticed particles floating in the oil that appear to be small back chunks. Has any other users experienced this and what steps have been taken to address this problem?
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We have 20 Eisenbiess gearboxes on 624 engines. 10 of these gearboxes used Shell Omala S4 GX 320 gear oil and were in service with this oil for about 16k operating hours. The other 10 gearboxes were commissioned with Q8 El Greco 320 gear oil. On all the gearboxes we change the gear oil at 4k operating hours.
Recently on 5 of the gearboxes with 16k operating hours we switched from the Omala S4 GX 320 to the Q8 El Greco 320 gear oil. On all the gearboxes with Q8 El Greco gear oil we saw the oil color turn to a dark green and we saw black chunks that were found on the bottom of the gearbox and in the oil filter. The chunks were soft at first but over time began to harden. On the other hand, the 5 gearboxes that still had Omala 320 in them had oil that was clear and bright (like new honey). In all cases, whether Omala or El Greco the oil analysis results indicated no issues. But it appears the El Greco oil produces sludge or chunks and darkens significantly where the Omala 320 does not. We have also observed signs of coking around the gearbox bearings on gearboxes with El Greco but not on gearboxes with Omala. Our thought is that the El Greco is unable to handle higher temperatures while the Omala is capable of not breaking down in high temperature conditions (gearboxes oil temp is typically around 75 C). We are switching our gear oil back to Omala 320 on all our gearboxes