Exhaust Tail Pipe How to clean it

[tls pilot]

Does anyone have a good way to clean the exhaust tail pipe?

 

[N201MKTurbo]

The inside or the outside?

If you want to make the outside look better, I would use soap, water and 800 grit wet or dry sandpaper and a generous amount of elbow grease.

[Brandt]

I found this video interesting.  Haven’t tried it. https://youtu.be/Gfg2HJ2adUE

[Hank]

20 hours ago, tls pilot said:

Does anyone have a good way to clean the exhaust tail pipe?

 

Just be aware that the exhaust heat will discolor the pipe regardless of how much you clean / polish it. Exhaust gas is quite warm (look at your EGT), but does cool down going through the muffler. The pipe is cool to the touch after you land because EGT goes down significantly at low power, and there is little mass in the pipe itself to retain heat.

[ArtVandelay]

The inside or the outside?
If you want to make the outside look better, I would use soap, water and 800 grit wet or dry sandpaper and a generous amount of elbow grease.

And if you want to make the inside look better, you have OCD and need to see a doctor.
On second thought, polishing the outside of the muffler might be OCD too.

[N201MKTurbo]

4 minutes ago, ArtVandelay said:

And if you want to make the inside look better, you have OCD and need to see a doctor.
On second thought, polishing the outside of the muffler might be OCD too.

When I was rebuilding my engine, I spent hours cleaning the deposits out of my pipes. Trying not to breath much lead salts.

[ArtVandelay]

When I was rebuilding my engine, I spent hours cleaning the deposits out of my pipes. Trying not to breath much lead salts.

Why?
Does a muffler ever clog up due to deposits?

[A64Pilot]

Scotch brite pad on an angle die grinder

[N201MKTurbo]

2 hours ago, ArtVandelay said:

Why?
Does a muffler ever clog up due to deposits?

I guess I’m OCD for wanting all the parts to be like new.

[N201MKTurbo]

27 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Scotch brite pad on an angle die grinder

With it off the plane, that would be great, but on the plane I think power tools might do more harm than good.

[A64Pilot]

These, they run just as slow as you want, or will scream RPM like, well a dieginder. The one on the right is for 2” pads, pad shown is sanding but meant to show size.

They are as gentle as you are and easy to handle especially at lower RPM

That’s a quarter for scale

 

 

 

[GeeBee]

Not a good idea to erode away at your exhaust pipes.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

Not a good idea to erode away at your exhaust pipes.

 

Those pipes are so hard and tough, you can barely get them clean, much less sand through them.

My problem with power tools isn’t because of the pipes, it was because of the paint and aluminum so close to them. One slip and you are missing paint.

[GeeBee]

Unless you can assure the integrity and continuity of the material thickness, you are going to create hot spots at the thinnest point. Notice that pipe failures often occurs at places where the pipe is thinned due to bending or welding. Take a piece of metal tubing, neck down the material thickness at an area and apply a torch through it, watch which area is the first to glow.

[N201MKTurbo]

2 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Unless you can assure the integrity and continuity of the material thickness, you are going to create hot spots at the thinnest point. Notice that pipe failures often occurs at places where the pipe is thinned due to bending or welding. Take a piece of metal tubing, neck down the material thickness at an area and apply a torch through it, watch which area is the first to glow.

There is no way a human with sandpaper could thin it enough to cause a hotspot in less than a day of rubbing on the same spot.

[Hank]

9 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

There is no way a human with sandpaper could thin it enough to cause a hotspot in less than a day of rubbing on the same spot.

If the sandpaper is on a pneumatic or electric grinder in the hands of an inexperienced human, it can be done in a matter of seconds.

[N201MKTurbo]

4 minutes ago, Hank said:

If the sandpaper is on a pneumatic or electric grinder in the hands of an inexperienced human, it can be done in a matter of seconds.

I’ll bet you a beer you can’t make a hole in one in 10 minutes with an 80 grit sanding disk. I have some scrap Cessna pipes we can use.

BTW. I have said to use 800 grit sand paper and your hand. It will take you a considerable amount of time to make it shiny.

[Hank]

6 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I have said to use 800 grit sand paper and your hand. It will take you a considerable amount of time to make it shiny.

Yes, it will take a long time using only 800; I'd start with 320, then 400, 600 and end with 800, with a little oil and wipe the pipe clean between grits. Much quicker, negligee loss of thickness if sanding by hand. Then one XC flight to make the stainless steel pipe start to discolor in the straw-to-brown color.

But others here have proposed both electric and pneumatic grinders for polishing the tailpipe. Not on my plane!

6 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

Scotch brite pad on an angle die grinder

 

5 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

These, they run just as slow as you want, or will scream RPM like, well a dieginder. The one on the right is for 2” pads, pad shown is sanding but meant to show size.

They are as gentle as you are and easy to handle especially at lower RPM

That’s a quarter for scale

 

[GeeBee]

It is not about wearing a hole. They measure heat diffusion of materials in millimeters. It is about the consistency of the thickness, not how much material is there. Do some burner can work and you'll find out.

Further that layer you are eroding away to "polish" is an oxide layer. Metal oxides are usually very tough and durable against heat and wear. Thus you are not just thinning the metal, but setting it up for more thinning by eliminating the oxide layer.

 

 

 

[A64Pilot]

See I don’t understand the purpose, if somethings burnt on a scotch brite pad on a die grinder isn’t removing metal, sandpaper sure.

But if you want to make it pretty have it chromed. or plasma coated.

‘I ignore mine, I haven’t washed the airplane this year, I’ll never polish anything, glad this one has a painted spinner

[GeeBee]

There are pretty exhaust systems that are polished SS. I had one on my PA-18. However the tubing is pre-polished by a machine for consistency and then is bent and welded all in the polished state. Once you start trying to polish a plain system it will turn into bad news. If you want to make a plain system pretty, paint it with ultra high temp exhaust paint, then keep doing that until you are sick of doing it.