Im tired of the twice yearly belly cleaning, the 58 y/o shoulders cant take it anymore....anybody had any luck with the air/oil separators??? do they perform as advertised to keep the belly clean??

I ran wet pumps on my C180's and used a seperator. It worked fine.

Gump

Used the m20 it was excellent on o200 money well spent

Gawrsh I wish my shoulders were only 58 years old!

Cary

I've got it on my 182, and it's hard to say. I didn't like the thing right away when I took it for its first flight after the mechanic installed it, and I noticed the oil pumping overboard on the left wing strut. Made an emergency landing on a gravel bar and found the oil line running out of the rocker box wasn't hooked up. I've been jaded ever since, the belly will still get dirty, and if you don't wash it twice a year, it takes a brillo pad, floor creeper, stoddard solvent and lots of patience (sorta like it did before!) I can't say it was the best use of $$$.

mine works just fine.. belly was a mess before I installed it and now I just wipe with a rag every 4 or 5 months.. but what's on there is from exhaust and a little from the breather which I've been told is normal for the IO 360...worth the money....

X2 for the M20 product, I know of another O-470-11 with one installed & it stays very clean. I'm installing one on the breather side at this annual. I'm sure the Airwolf is comparable.

If you are looking I have one for sale.... New in box sold airplane that it was going to go on so I don't need it!!

We had one with the wet vac pump too. The pump went Tango Uniform so we replaced with a dry - type and removed the airsep. Since then there has been no increase of exterior airframe lube, and the oil stays much cleaner now without the extra condensation going back in the crankcase.

My opinion is to leave it off.

Has anyone ever tried relocating the breather? Say..a foot or so below the cowl? Seems to me that if you got the design right (for pressure), it would greatly reduce the belly issue.

I have to do my belly 3x-4x a year or so. I use a cheap $8 pump up tree sprayer from home depot with Mr. Clean in it. I spray it on in about a minute all over the bottom, them use a car wash brush with the hose attached to wipe it down without water (another couple of minutes), then turn the water on and brush off with water, and then flood it all to get it squeaky clean. No shoulders required- I do it standing. About 10 minutes, start to finish, and no crawling.

If water is lacking, I use a 50 gallon plastic barrel in the back of my car and a $40 transfer pump from home depot to do the job.

My mechanic doesn't think the separators really do the job as advertised.

No mention yet about sticking the breather tube into a water bottle. Works great. Just like much of Piper engineering.

dawgfreeman wrote:Im tired of the twice yearly belly cleaning, the 58 y/o shoulders cant take it anymore....anybody had any luck with the air/oil separators??? do they perform as advertised to keep the belly clean??

A bit of history; in calm air there has been very little or no discharge from the breather, in turbulence the breather would blow out some oil, in an effort to rectify this problem, I installed an Air Wolf oil air separator, against the advice from the tech writer at Sky Ranch and my IA. My IA is not in love with Air Wolf products, the tech writer at Sky Ranch says the combustion gasses and moisture condense in the separator and returned to the crank case create a corrosion issue, however I was convinced that the circulating air from the vacuum pump would purge these gasses from the crank case. Did I mention that I have a hard head?
I installed the Air Wolf, oil air separator, problems started as soon as I opened the box, I ordered it from the factory web page, the order form was specific to make, model, and engine, both the STC and the order form reflected the make, model and engine, maybe one of the hoses were long enough, the scat hose was way too short, the vacuum pump line was way too short, and if I remember right I had to pay for the difference after returning the short lines to the factory, I could be mistaken on that point, I have tried to forget the whole ordeal. They said that I had ordered the wrong kit that was why the lines were the wrong length, really? (The separator, according to instructions, is mounted in the highest possible in the engine compartment, I don’t know of any aircraft that could use only a foot and a half of breather tube) Now that I have installed it I made some short flights .5- 1 hours it seemed to work, then a flight to Los Vegas, 1.45 hours, HOLLY S$#T oil everywhere, I’m surprised that Henderson didn’t bill me for the clean up! It has NEVER done this before! In the instructions they explain that the scat (vent line) must be positioned in just the right spot to stop oil discharge from the breather. Fourteen hours of dicking with it and numerous calls to the factory they finally told me to remove the vacuum discharge line from the separator can and plug the hole, Hmm, this isn’t in the instructions, I also disassembled the separator I found that one of the legs of the floor in the separator was partially covering the oil return hole, now, it finally seems to be working, there is still a small amount of oil vapor on the bottom but nothing wet, still need to clean it now and then, 150 hr or so later I had the return line valve cover off, I found rust on my valve springs and on my push rods. After inspecting the separator it appears as if the discharge air from the vacuum pump was actually pressurizing the breather and forcing air and oil out of the oil drain, but that is only me theory. Good luck.

NimpoCub wrote:No mention yet about sticking the breather tube into a water bottle. Works great. Just like much of Piper engineering.

Do you have a pic?

Thought I did but can't find it. Will get 'nuther one when next near the plane.

It's just a water (whatever) bottle jammed between the lower engine mount tube & firewall. Breather tube is cut a bit shorter than the bottom of the bottle & stuck into the bottle. Neck of bottle is just a titch bigger than the breather tube so no pressure builds inside, the drippies are caught & can be dumped once in a while. Rube Goldberg & McGuiver would be proud. Red Green not so much. (unless you taped the bottle to a tube)

A previous owner of my C-172/O-300 extended the breather tube about 2 inches below the cowling, seems to work very well for keeping everything clean. I also have some undocumented 3 inch extensions on both exhaust pipes that keep soot stains off the lower cowling. No idea who put them there or when, they just exist.

Dale Moul wrote:A previous owner of my C-172/O-300 extended the breather tube about 2 inches below the cowling, seems to work very well for keeping everything clean. I also have some undocumented 3 inch extensions on both exhaust pipes that keep soot stains off the lower cowling. No idea who put them there or when, they just exist.

Just be absolutely certain that you have a "whistle slot" or auxiliary breather hole in that breather line well up inside the cowling. Else, in freezing temps, that extended breather will freeze up, and could push the nose seal out of your engine. Then you land.

MTV

I have the extra vent hole in the breather tube, right where the AD says it should be at the highest point on the tube. And I know someone who had the breather tube on a 182 freeze up over colorado and ended up running out of oil, but didn't bend any sheet metal.

If you have a wet vac pump, I like the stock small triangle air/oil sep. Aerobatics the large after market. Normal ops the water bottle or soda can is my favorite so you can see the health of your engine. If the air/oil sep is installed correctly and its working well it may hide an engine problem. Nothing like scrubbing your plane to notice what needs attention. I have at least 4 after market air/oil seps in boxes lying around. I think the under cowl temps still allow the water byproduct to go overboard. When you inspect a air / oil sep they sure do stink.

I'm no mechanic but I have had an AirWolf air/oil sep on my Cardinal for some time. Firstly, the argument for them over the M20 is the larger canister size will collect a greater amount and secondly that it will return the separated oil while in flight. The downside is that the return line is slightly pressurized and if you have any ring issues it will blow a serious amount through the engine (but from exerience an IO360 will still run on 2 litres of oil). The installation can be a bit troublesome but one of the keys to working successfully is to ensure it's mounted as high as possible under the cowl.

The alternative suggestion of extending the breather below the cowl could perhaps be a problem if it catches enough of the slipstream to syphon the oil out at an accelerated rate...?