Any advice as to how to clean the outside of my YS .53? The muffler has gotten quite a bit of baked on fuel stain. Would Easy Off or steel wool scouring pad work? thanks.

Rubbing alcohol and a tooth brush does wonders for the engine but the muffler is another matter.

Do not use any oven cleaner on your engine. Even the aluminum safe type will oxidize the aluminum. Regular oven cleaner will turn your engine a dull dark grey forever in just a few seconds.

Some people use a crock pot and antifreeze. But do not boil. You will still have to do aa lot of scrubbing. Use a old one and keep it in the shop. Never use it for food anymore.

Sand paper, steel wool, scratch pads, mess up the surface of the muffler. It's then obvious you have been monkeying with the muffler?

Carb cleaner sometimes helps a little on the muffler. I've also used rubbing compound but you have to finish with the white variety.

The best thing is not to worry about the muffler. They'll just get black again.

I'm proud of my black dirty mufflers. It means I have flown the daylights out of the engine.

I like to keep the engine itself clean!

Enjoy,

Jim

I never thought of it that way. My engine stays pretty clean, and I think I'll just let the muffler go.

Just to reaffirm, do NOT use oven cleaner on a glow engine! Sounds like like a good idea, but w8ye is exactly right. I tried it on a new OS 61 about 10 years ago just to keep it looking nice, and what it did to the finish just made me sick! Wish I would've known then...[&o]

HEllo; I just use a comercially available hand cleaner and a toothbrush, then I rinse it with water. It might take a little "elbow grease" to get all the gipe off, but you won't be harming the surface.

I clean my OS 4 stroke mufflers with the crock pot and antifreeze method. Use glycol antifreeze, cook on low with the glass cover on for 24 hrs. best to do it in the garage. Mine always come out looking like brand new with no crude on them. Really!!

After reading about the "crock-pot" method here (and elsewhere on this website) I just had to give it a go - and I have to say it's "amazing!"

My thanks go to everyone who wrote about this system, either here or in other earlier posts. You can see the results of my first attempts, using a very old and scruffy engine, here: http://www.geocities.com/heavylander/

Tony