Oil on the belly

My Cub has progressivly gotten more and more oil on the inside of the cowl and belly over the years. The engine had oil around the cylinders and case halves so I supected most of it was coming from the base gaskets and case halves sealent. The other day I thought just for the heck of it I would tighten the clamps on the hoses (4 ea. 2" long) that connect the top cylinder oil lines to the barb fittings on the crank case. Found two of the clamps were broken and loose as well as the hoses were swelled and cracked. Got eight new clamps and a foot of 3/8" reinforced gas/oil hose and in 45 minutes replaced them all. Cleaned the inside of the compartment and belly with Simply Green. Flew 13 hours this weekend. No oil on the belly and very little on the inside of the cowl. Oil consumption went way down as well. Bang, bang, bang...(my head aginst the wall), why didn't I think of that one sooner? Too busy flying and adding oil I guess...Crash

Simple Green

Be cautious of how often you use this stuff. The Army used to clean their helecopters with it and quit. Most people thin it to use it. That's fine except in areas that it stands and drys. It becomes very concentrated and corrosion follows. It's probably ok on the belly. Jerry.

Ditto on that one Crash! I had a 185 that blew and Oil cooler and covered the whole airplane with oil, inside and out! I used simple green aswell and it worked great till about a year later when I was working on some loose rivets in the Gearbox area and started noticing corrosion. I scraped some off and also the film that was around the area. I had it analized and found it to be "Soap". That was about the same time that the Army Guard sent out a bulletin stopping the use of it on there helicopters (it was used by the 55 gallon drum to take the exhaust soot off of the helicopters until they discovered the the High corrosion factor of the product if (left on the Aluminum!

I will try to find the write up and publish it!

Tim

Thanks for the tip on the hoses and clamps ( I got the same situation) and I am going to check on it tomorrow!)

oil on the belly

i always thought simply green was a little hard on my a/c. there's a new product by meguier's out there that works wonders on cleaning a/c; and they even advertise it to clean a/c. i've used it for one year and no corrosion yet.

as for oil on your belly(i know this has been addressed before) try the baby bottle method. i've found that when i stick the breather below the cowling it seems to suck oil out of the engine. i.e. 1qt every 10 hrs. but when i put the bottle on there and keep it well vented for the seals, i lose like an ounce or two every fifty hours. it works great.

turbo

Oil Clean Up

I have used the baby bottle on the breather tube for the last 5 years. Most of the oil seems to have been coming from my connecter hoses. I have always rinsed off any blue or green cleaners with fresh water as a last step. In the past I've found if you don't rinse the cleaners off and dry, they will attract dirt with the film they leave behind. Just touch a dirty hand to a cowl tha has not been rinsed and the residue of the cleaner will lift the dirt from your hand and leave it on the cowl. Good to know they might cause corrosion on aluminum. I think rinsing with clear water will stop a lot of this. Crash

OK.......I've been looking and I can't find where it was discussed b-4 so I'll bite.....I need the details on the "baby bottle" thing. If this is something to help keep the oil off the belly of my plane, I gotta know about it! My breather pukes oil, well ok...spits enough to be annoying when I do my pull ups for banner pick ups. Looks like after today it may not matter anyway, the TSA pulled all of our waivers to pull around the stadiums.