What's best readily available product to clean plane belly?

[172andyou]

Any good cleaning job is going to be messy.

That's a fair point. Gojo still seems exceptionally messy (and not that great at the job) to me. But, yeah, any approach that doesn't involve hiring someone else to do it, will be messy.

 

[kgruber]

It etches aluminum and makes it nice and shiny. That's why car owners with (thick, cast) polished aluminum manifolds have been using it for a half century. Soak a piece of (thin)aluminum skin in it for a week and get back to me with your findings.

Dream on. You want to dunk your airplane and Gunk for a week? Truly unfortunate thinking!!

 

[172andyou]

Then you're not doing it right.

My two experiences:

1) During application you go wrist deep in the stuff and smear it all over the bottom of your plane. As your body heat warms it, it has a tendency to run down your arm some also.

2) During removal you are left with a mess of water/gojo laying around and it leaves a film behind that needs to be cleaned in order to prevent it from attracting dust and causing weird streaking.

What are you doing differently?

 

[James331]

That's a fair point. Gojo still seems exceptionally messy (and not that great at the job) to me. But, yeah, any approach that doesn't involve hiring someone else to do it, will be messy.

I find doing your own detailing to me a good thing for most pilots to do, the more a pilot is involved in their own planes care and feeding the better IMO. Comes down to being a owner vs a renter

 

[FastEddieB]

I find doing your own detailing to me a good thing for most pilots to do, the more a pilot is involved in their own planes care and feeding the better IMO. Comes down to being a owner vs a renter

Yes.

A good cleaning and detailing is a great way to find little areas of corrosion, cracks in fairings and the like before they propagate too far, loose fairing and inspection panel screws, leaky hoses, cracks in composite or fabric finish, just all sorts of things.

 

[timwinters]

Dream on. You want to dunk your airplane and Gunk for a week? Truly unfortunate thinking!!

So, what happens to your plane when a penetrating type cleaner wicks into a lap joint and you can't flush it out because of water's surface tension? Not understanding how this happens is not unfortunate thinking...it's not thinking at all.

Soaking a material in a cleaner for a week to make sure it's not caustic is (or at least was) the military litmus test. I've done this with everything I've used on my airplane before using it.

But, hey, it's your plane, use whatever you want to!

Edit:. I've also tested many cleaning products I'll never use including engine brite. On my scale of 1 to 10, with Castrol purple cleaner being a 10 (it eats a hole completely through a piece of skin in a week), engine brite is about a 3. A 4 on the outside.

 

[timwinters]

What are you doing differently?

1) I keep a creeper in the hangar, I get a big wad of paper towels and smear it on the belly. About half way through I get a new wad of paper towels. I won't say I never drip any on me, but I'm not dressed for evening dinner when I'm washing my plane.

I smear GoJo first before doing anything else...

2) by the time I finish washing the rest of the plane, including the top and sides of the fuselage, most of the GoJo is already rinsed off. Then I hit the belly with my normal wash concoction using an automotive brush with a handle (thus not having to get on the creeper again)...and it's done. Not film, no dust collecting. Just a squeaky clean belly. No GoJo on the hangar floor...by now there's been enough water flooding off the plane that the hangar floor is rinsed.

And a squeaky clean belly for very little effort compared to some other methods mentioned here. I can't imagine laying on my back scrubbing a belly with 100LL or white gas. Life's too short.

 

[Timbeck2]

I know you said "readily available" but Aero Cosmetics' Belly Wash is great stuff. Invest in a creeper, you'll thank yourself for it.

 

[Bill Watson]

100LL...and a couple of dry rags. My Bo looks squeaky clean.

Oh....and when rolling around on you're back....there's a cleaner dispenser at each wing root.

Did exactly that 2 days ago - not sure why anyone would use anything else. Use gloves. I used goggles but not really needed. A little goes a long way and you can use Simple Green (aircraft) to wash it afterwards if you want... but not really needed.