The very best way to clean an engine is in a crock pot with enough antifreeze to cover your engine. You do not have to disassemble the engine, just remove any rubber o-rings. I do the engines and mufflers separately. I use an old crockpot or a new one for 13 dollars at walmart. Put in the engine/s and heat outside overnight. Remove the engine, shake out the antifreeze and wipe dry and go fly.
On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:46:40 GMT, FRED wrote in :
I've heard good things about this, too.
The antifreeze needs to be old-style, made with ethylene glycol, which is sweet, syrupy, and poisonous.
Don't let pets or kids get into the antifreeze and, as a safety precaution, don't use the crock-pot for cooking food after using it as an engine cleaner.
Brand-new crockpots were on sale in our area for $6 at Big Lots this fall.
Marty
ROFLOL!
I bought a back up at the Goodwill store for $2 and lent my primary out. It got broken, but I am still good.
Some engines (e.g. OS 4-strokes) have sealed bearings that are greased internally. You do this and you'd be damaging your bearing. For a plain engine, however, the antifreeze method works fine but it does take some time. As an alternative I use Tal Mar II cleaner that I spray on, wait for a few minutes and wipe off all the junk. In many instances I can do the cleaning with the engine on the plane.
I've had only TWO occasions when I had to clean an engine. First, I was lucky because the engine wasn't running when it came down. Yes it was pretty well covered with weeds and light dirt. I notice the carburetor was closed. To clean the engine, I sprayed it with regular plane cleaner (maybe water), waited a few minutes and blew the dirt off with a high pressure air hose.
The engine looks and runs like new, and it's in the third plane. ________________________________ Earl Scherzinger 'AMA' #40329
but it wont shift burnt on oil which antifreeze will
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Dawn Power Dissolver in a spray bottle will definitely remove burnt on castor oil. I've done it myself on an OS 1965 .58 R/C engine and an HB .61 PDP that had the largest build up of burnt on castor oil that I've ever seen.
Spray this stuff on, wait a little bit, few seconds, and then start rubbing it off with a paper towel. A really badly covered engine might take you 45 minutes to clean nearly perfectly. I say nearly because the HB has a ding in it and I have managed to get this tiny speck of castor oil off of the engine. I haven't tried all that hard either. A piece of small wooden dowel, sharpened to a point, with a good shot of DPD should remove it quickly.
DPD does not damage the engine in any way that I can detect. The finish remains original. No, it is not quite as good as an antifreeze bath, but it is so close that I won't bother using the antifreeze in many cases. It just isn't necessary.
How hard is it on your hands? It is nearly identical in its effect as 409 spray cleaner. That stuff makes my skin tingle a slight bit. DPD does the same thing. In other words, as far as I know, it doesn't appear to be anything to worry about. As soon as my new liver settles down, I'll get back to cleaning more engines. Can't wait.
Just kidding about the new liver, by the way.
Ed Cregger
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