Hey guys,

I was getting my Easy Sport ready for a nice day of flying tomorrow by adding foam rubber around the fuel tank, when i noticed how dirty my engine is. IT took my one hour to get a paper towel through every piece of oil on it. How do you guys care for an engine? I have yellow spots starting to form on mine, how do you remove them? By the way, my glider will take to the air tomorrow as well. Cant wait, but now its raining so hoepfully it will get better by tomorrow.

THanks for the advice,

Michal

there are several ways but unless i am doing a rebuild after many years of use i do not bother with the out side of the engine except to just wipe it off and oil it after a days flying sesion.i also run the tank dry on the last flite and land deadstick to keep any fuel left in the engine from rusting bearings.have been doing this for over 30 years and while my engines are not new looking they are not blavk or brown either and they do not look like they have been used for 30 years constantly.

Keeping an engine spotless is futile. It's going to be build up on it. It's normal and it doesn't hurt the engine one bit. If you really want to clean a motor use antifreeze in a crockpot. Please note that if you do this NEVER COOK FOOD IN THE CROCKPOT AGAIN. The antifreeze will get in the crockpot and will transfer to food, not a good combination. Anyway, use green antifreeze. Disassemble the motor and put the parts in the crockpot. Remove any gaskets and rubber parts. Pour in enough antifreeze to cover the parts and put the crockpot on low for 12-24 hours (depending on how much build up is on the engine). Make sure you have plenty of ventilation when doing this because the fumes are toxic. Once the parts are through "cooking" remove them from the crockpot. Any left over buildup should be soft enough to remove with a brush or soft rag. Reassemble your motor and it should look brand new.

As I said above, I only do this when the build up on a motor is excessive. I usually don't have to do it until the motor has over 400 or so flights on it. IMHO, just wipe off any excess oil at the end of the day and don't worry about the discoloration on the motor. It's normal.

Hope this helps

Ken

OK, guess its fine then. Too bad nobody made a safealternative solution, kinda like windex.

I'm with Ken on this one. I've got way more important things to do than worry about some spots on my engines. Curiously, the Webra .32 on my MT Extra 300S is nearly spotless even after hundreds of flights. I've yet to figure out why.

While running the tank dry and landing dead-stick will work, I find it easier and less risky to pump that tank dry after the last flight of the day! I pull thie pick-up and exhaust pressure lines off the engine, pump the tank dry and re-start the engine and then run it dry. Then I squirt in my Marvel's Air Tool Oil and run this through the engine with my starter. Finally, I replace both the pressure and pick-up lines to their connections on the engine

The only thing I would add here is the fact that some engines seem to oil and thus varnish very bad and some don't. One thing to remember is that if it gets bad enough without care it can cause heat retention. Also if you have an engine that really seems to throw a lot of fuel then you should find out why. I have seen engines loose fuel around the glow plug simply because of poor manufacturing, the same with seepage around the head. It is normal to get a little spit from the carb and of course out the pipe. Also use hi temp silicone between the muffler and head, this will help a lot and if there is even just a little mis alignment it will seal it. Like Robert Duval said in Apocalypse Now , " I love the smell of Napalm in the morning", well with us it is the obsession with Glow Fuel and the mess it leaves behind........

Have fun and happy flying...That reminds me, I have not had a dose of glow fuel in a while, I need to do something about that

piperchuck,
in regards to your webra 32,i have engines that are like that and i have others that show brown fromvarnish build up.the differences in the engiens seem to be that the cleaner ones have no fuel/exhaust spitting out of the carb,front bearing area or the muffler/exhaust flange joint.my hp 61 that i bought in 1973 looks like new after being used all this time.the muffler on that model fits over the exhust opening and really seals it.my webras use a semco muffler with the proper adabter that has a machined recess that slips over the exhaust stack.these are the old blackhead purchased in 1972. it is clean also.i have a few os that have some varnish build up on the front of the head fins and on top of the exhaust port.these engines when running have a slight exhust oil leakage between the muffler and engine as a drop will form while running and it is the older air bleed style carb that spits fuel out a bit at idle and i can see it accumalating on the front of the head.seems the cleanest engines are the ones that allow no leakage.