Skylane81E
Final Approach
Largest. Especially in bearings. But there's also a big aluminum piston, exposed to the hottest parts of the engine, riding in a nice cold steel cylinder too
What temps to start using Tanis engine preheater?
- Thread starter Morne
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Largest. Especially in bearings. But there's also a big aluminum piston, exposed to the hottest parts of the engine, riding in a nice cold steel cylinder too
Mine is set up on an Intermatic 7 day timer and a line voltage thermostat set to it's minimum (probably somewhere around 45 degrees). If it's Friday, Saturday, or Sunday morning and cold it runs the heater starting at 2AM. If I need to go another time, I call the mechanic and he will just by pass the timer for me.
Tony_Scarpelli
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This true but no faster for a pre warm up than for the rate of normal warm up that occurs when the engine is started.
Battery tenders ensure that the battery is at max charge, which helps because our batteries perform less well at cold temps.
In addition, proper battery tenders prevent sulfation in batteries, which occurs if batteries sit idle. Sulfation kills batteries.
Tony_Scarpelli
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Battery tender is a good idea. I call the airport on the mornings when I am going to fly and they plug in the heater few hours before my arrival.
I don't leave heaters plugged in as I do not fly often enough in winters and I heard it causes moisture issues.
Since the year+ since I posted to this thread, I ditched the timer and put in a GSMAuto cell phone relay for my TANIS. Now I can just send a text message the night before when I intend to fly and get confirmation that it's on (of course, this means nothing if I forgot to plug the plane into the extension cord).
Interesting...the oil cooler winterization plate for a cherokee is a simple flat piece of Al screwed over the cooler inlet. The cherokee didn't have one when I bought it, but according to AC-43B (or whatever) it's legal for me to fabricate one according to proper specs & FAA docs.
Took me longer over at the A&P school to find a nice piece of Al in the scrap pile than to cut & drill to match the picture. See if you can find specs or make a paper template from someone who has one. There's enough builders up here at FTG that we can fabricate one for you for the mere price of lunch. Do any of the CAP airplanes have one?
tmyers
En-Route
I have one of the oil cooler plates but figuring out when to install it can be like buying a lottery ticket. It might be below 50 at home but warmer in the southern climates. The oil temperature holds pretty steady when at altitude and well below freezing. Hard to guess when it should really be installed. I would think it would be better to not have it installed in cold weather than to have it installed and fly in warmer weather.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
Apache123
Line Up and Wait
For those of you with rieff / tanis what do you do on cross-country overnight trips? I have some planned soon, and I'm not sure whether there will be an outlet nearby for the preheaters.
I asked Landmark to either pull me into the hangar or plug the block heater in. I came out to find my airplane in the hangar and plugged in. That worked. Mostly we don't travel too much in the cold weather. Our usual destination has a heated hangar.
Apache123
Line Up and Wait
Also, I'm ordering a reiff system tomorrow; 
Do you guys have an upper temp limit which you wouldn't run the preheat? Given the reduce to engine wear on startup, wouldn't it be a good thing to run pretty much until the ambient temperature made it not a good thing to do? Say 60 or even 70º depending on the rise of temperature caused by the heater?
Do you guys have an upper temp limit which you wouldn't run the preheat? Given the reduce to engine wear on startup, wouldn't it be a good thing to run pretty much until the ambient temperature made it not a good thing to do? Say 60 or even 70º depending on the rise of temperature caused by the heater?
Morne
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I have an engine blanket for such eventualities but have never had to use it. Most airports have a plug somewhere you can run an extension cord to.
timwinters
Ejection Handle Pulled
I posted this over in Ted's thread but it really belongs here:
Regarding oil cooler winterization plates. FAA approved duct tape works quite well on front mounted coolers like my O-470 has.
Regarding oil cooler winterization plates. FAA approved duct tape works quite well on front mounted coolers like my O-470 has.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Heh heh.
Our O-470 oil temps don't move much. Blocking some of the oil cooler only really seems to change warm-up time. Once it's there, the needle likes to sit in virtually the same spot, year round.
More important on the O-470 is buying the winter oil cooler with larger galleries and less chance of trapping really cold congealed oil that can't move while being hammered on by the engine oil pump in extremely (REALLY extremely) cold weather, or not having a multi-viscosity oil in them in deep cold winter. They'll bulge and be unhappy if they're not included in pre-heat.
Only the winter version has the attach points for the official Cessna plate if I remember correctly. I don't know if there's an official "winterization kit" (plate) for the Cessna restart aircraft with Lycoming engines.
Haven't ever had a reason to research it. Also never seen ANY 182 run "cold" enough to worry much about it. If you take it to Alaska and store it outside in winter, I'd suspect you might want one.
flyingcheesehead
Taxi to Parking
Take extension cords.
steingar
Taxi to Parking
I wish I had the electronics mojo to pull this off.