Oil and exhaust pipes

[EatSleepFly]

How much, if any, risk of fire is there if engine oil is seeping, leaking, spraying, oozing, spattering, or otherwise coming into contact with red hot exhaust pipes in flight? How much would it take to create a real risk and/or cause a fire? Say on a TIO-540 for example. Just curious. Thanks in advance!

 

[BRIGADEAVIATOR]

Not so much aircraft. But my friend use to have a VW baja bug and he spilled some oil on the engine when adding a qt, and didn't think it would be that big of a problem. Well he didn't get to the end of the block before his engine caught fire.

 

[aucfi]

How much, if any, risk of fire is there if engine oil is seeping, leaking, spraying, oozing, spattering, or otherwise coming into contact with red hot exhaust pipes in flight? How much would it take to create a real risk and/or cause a fire? Say on a TIO-540 for example. Just curious. Thanks in advance!

Did you begin to wonder this after flying at night in a PA31? When I first flew a Navajo (TIO-540s) at night I was shocked at how bright & red the exhaust stacks were.

au

 

[GravityHater]

If there is enough to burn there could well be enough lost to reduce your max oil range on that engine! Either way its not an acceptable condition. A couple o' drops is not going to kill anyone but if you are talking about 'spraying', 'splattering', then you got a problem to fix before you fly.

 

[jknight8907]

Do you have one of those small oil leaks that streams back on the cowling over time? It seems like that's a neverending problem in our PA31. Nothing major, just a drip over time that looks really ugly.