Conceptually an oil change is pretty familiar... in an airplane engine the filter location is high on the back of the engine and containing the oil within the filter during removal can be a bit tricky. For the first oil change I am going to stick with straight mineral oil, the cylinders are all broken in and I could switch to a dispersant oil but since I have another case of it mineral oil I will use it. Before heading to the badlands fly-in I will change it again and switch.
To try to get the most oil out of the pan I lifted the tail to drain. I have installed a quick drain fitting for the oil pan that works pretty good. Hot oil helps to make the flow rate reasonable but even so it takes 10-15 minutes for it to fully drain. The straight mineral oil gets very dark quickly.
After draining the oil I tried to use a pan adapter to catch the oil from the filter but the hose fitting to the oil cooler is too close to the filter to use it... I will need to come up with another idea or change the block fitting to a 45 to get clearance from the filter. I decided to just do it and take the filter off... yikes it dumped about a cup of oil to the floor... good news that the tail was lifted keeping the oil off of the firewall. Other than the floor, there was no mess on the plane. Next time I will rig up a funnel and punch a couple of holes in the filter.
I spun the filter on only to discover that i need a 1” wrench... I have a 1” crows foot could not get it on in the recess. With a borrowed wrench I tightened it down... too much it will turn out at the next oil change... beware of over torquing the oil filter. Only tighten it with a stubby wrench if you can not get a proper torque wrench on.
Putting oil in the mighty cessna with its H2AD engine is easy... the filler is on top of the engine and you can just pour oil in without making a mess. Most other lycoming engines have an angled filler neck that needs a deep funnel to access. we found a great little funnel for fifty cents at the exchange that will even fit in a zip lock for travel.
I marked the filter with tach hours and date, safety wired it up, put the cowling back on, and took it for a quick flight.
Oil change one complete!
I wonder if the angle filter adapters allow the oil within the filter to drain to the pan eliminating the mess...
I spun the filter on only to discover that i need a 1” wrench... I have a 1” crows foot could not get it on in the recess. With a borrowed wrench I tightened it down... too much it will turn out at the next oil change... beware of over torquing the oil filter. Only tighten it with a stubby wrench if you can not get a proper torque wrench on.
Putting oil in the mighty cessna with its H2AD engine is easy... the filler is on top of the engine and you can just pour oil in without making a mess. Most other lycoming engines have an angled filler neck that needs a deep funnel to access. we found a great little funnel for fifty cents at the exchange that will even fit in a zip lock for travel.
I marked the filter with tach hours and date, safety wired it up, put the cowling back on, and took it for a quick flight.
Oil change one complete!
I wonder if the angle filter adapters allow the oil within the filter to drain to the pan eliminating the mess...
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| quick drain fitting... should really tie a piece of safety wire at the hose fitting |
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| straight weight mineral oil for engine break in |
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| first oil change complete :) |
