I appreciate these tips Brian. My engine has had a small annoying oil
leak for the past year. I can't tell exactly where it's coming from but
seems to be somewhere in the front cover area. I run the engine on the
ground and can't see any leak, it only seems to happen in the air, maybe
because I can run higher RPM in the air. A friend just gave me a tip he
found on the internet, email below. I bought the little bottle of oil
dye from Napa, will try this soon.
Perry Mick

__________________________________________________________________________

Hello All

Thanks to those who answered my questions in the past about finding oil
leaks on my 0200 Vari-eze.  I  used the oil dye that you can get in a
little  one ounce bottle from Napa auto parts.  It looks like oil but
glows florescent yellow/green under a black light/ ultra violet light.

I got the  black light fixture at ACE hardware.

I put the oil dye in the with a half qt. of oil to wash it down and
took her out for a flight to  get some oil flowing and then back to the
hanger.


I waited until after sun set to try out the  black light  as it needs
to be dark in the hanger to show up.  The dye showed my oil leaks
fantastically.  I needed a definite indication of the leak as the fix
was not that eze.

It was coming out of cylinder base.  I suspected the cylinder base but
the dye was the proof I needed.   Nothing would be worse than to
replace or redo something on your engine that did not need fixing.

How I fixed it was to take off the enough parts (head pipes, intake
pipes, baffle and spark plug.) so that I  could loosen up all the
cylinder nuts on the suspected cylinder.  Making sure the piston was at
top dead center first than I loosened the nuts so that I had about an
1/8" to 3/16" gap between the cylinder base and the crank case.

I got a mirror and a flash light and checked out the O-ring. The areas
that I could see looked fine.  I could not see all the way around as
some baffles were still in the way a little.

I than got a can of the STP carb cleaner, the kind that smells like
freon or computer cleaner and cleaned all around the base of the
cylinder.  Maybe a little may have leaked back down inside the case but
it was a small amount.  After that I put a bead of the copper color RTV
in there all the way around the base and torqued the cylinder bolts
back down.  I got a lot of RTV in there and a lot oosed out when it
tightened it back down.  I just wiped off what I could to clean it up a
little

I have made ten flights with a total of ten hours now and the leak is
stopped for now. MY eze is the most leak free that its ever been.

Just wanted to pass the dye trick along to the group.  It was mentioned
to me once a long time ago and then just a few weeks back another time
and then I finally tried it with great success.

I  told Tim Lo Dolche up at Lake Taho about it a couple days and and he
found and fixed three pesky leaks too.

I can concurr with Brian on this. It works great. But do not let anyone 
know if you use it in certificated engines. It is not approved, but it is 
perfect for our applications. I have used it for a long time. Now that 
Halloween is upon us, black lights are so plentiful and very cheap. A
normal light bulb size can be had at Walmart and replace your utility 
lamp for this for under $2.00. The dye is made by Balkamp and is available 
from NAPA (National Aircraft Parts Association) under the part number 
BK7652661. It goes for about $3.75 for a 1 oz bottle.
Doug

Doug Mueller
RX-6 13BT
N900DM
Henderson,Nevada

 
The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter.  Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site. http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            
Copyright 1998-2003 All world wide rights reserved.