Oil on windscreen

[robert7467]

Can you clean the engine with brake parts cleaner?

 

Nope, it will eat up the engine paint.

[M20F]

My airplane has stigmata. I too have oil mist on the windshield and I know where it comes from. It comes from a rivet on my upper cowling just aft of the prop and on the right side above cylinder #1.

Here's where it gets weird...

When you take the cowling off and flip it over, it's bone dry. Inspection of my prop hub always reveals it to be dry. The same is true for my front crank seal. No oil in places you would expect.

Where I do have a known leak is the number 2 cylinder base gasket. It obviously blows out on the top towards the prop. This has to be where my windshield oil is coming from, but the real mystery is how does it get from the base of number 2, to the rivet above number 1 without a trace???

It is an annoyance and that's all. The amount of oil loss isn't even easily measured. To me, its not worth pulling the jug for. I have come to accept that my airplane weeps due to my ham fisted flying, bone head flying skills. To which I tell her- "Suck it up Buttercup!! I pay the bills around here!!"

I just overhauled mine and the #3 rocker gasket leaks just enough to make a little streak onto the side panel.  I just got tired of messing with it and accepted it myself :-)

Samething though if you pull the panel its dry it just weeps through the crack a bit.  Some things I just accept as a mystery in aviation.

Can you clean the engine with brake parts cleaner?

 

A compressor, siphon spray attachment, and mineral spirits work good.  Just be careful not to spray mags and vacuum pump.  I find mineral spirits cleans just about anything.  Similiar to Clarence's comment don't smoke and spray :-)