For the Exxon Elite oil bottles, which have a wide neck, you can get this
which enables the whole thing to be inverted and placed over the oil filler hole, and then you turn the red thingy and that starts the oil flow.
Here, courtesy of a US RV forum, is the same thing attached to a flexible hose, for more difficult access situations
Is there such a thing for the (narrower neck) Aeroshell bottles? I have not found one
Today at LFMK, in 20+kt wind, I managed to get oil all over the place…
Here you go
It’s a very cheap item at $3, but the shipping and documentation charge add another $30.
I haven’t found a European seller.
Just in case somebody isn’t aware, the narrow neck Aeroshell bottle pictured screws directly into a Lycoming dip stick tube. That’s only useful if your cowling allows room for the bottle to be screwed in. Both mine do.
It’s difficult to screw a full bottle into the dipstick tube without spilling oil, but one can take an empty narrow-neck bottle and cut the bottom off to use it as a funnel. Phillips 66 bottles do especially well as they have a longer neck.
Silvaire wrote:
Just in case somebody isn’t aware, the narrow neck Aeroshell bottle pictured screws directly into a Lycoming dip stick tube. That’s only useful if your cowling allows room for the bottle to be screwed in. Both mine do.
Exactly…. Just means you only top up in increments of 1qt….let it run down to 6 and top up to 7 (on an 8qt max Lycoming IO360 anyway)..,no need for any funnels or adapters…
Many thanks all – very useful. I need to buy one of the type posted by Dublinpilot or RXH. Both are very similar.
BTW, AFAICT, the Aeroshell bottle doesn’t screw into my IO540-C4 oil filler.
See e.g. here and here and here
Also I always put the whole bottle in, but given that the filler is some 5cm below the top of the TB20 cowling there is no way (if there is any wind) to screw an upside-down bottle into the filler, even if the thread was right. The method I normally use to avoid spillage is to pour the oil along the (partially extracted) dipstick. Surface tension keeps the oil flow attached to the dipstick. But this won’t work in 20kt wind.
Excuse me if I’m stupid, but what’s wrong with a plain old funnel? I use one like this, simple, cheap, and efficient.
Personally, I tend to just roll up some used paper from my knee board into a funnel shape. It does the job perfectly, and the oil doesn’t make it’s way through the paper. I just need to find somewhere to dispose of the paper (or store it until safely at home) without destroying anything else. But that problem will also exist for such a device (storage without getting only on other things).
but what’s wrong with a plain old funnel?
Try using one in a strong wind, or in the rain.
Another more subtle thing is that whatever device one uses, it has to be carried in the plane, and one can’t just keep something in the back which is dripping with oil. A big funnel takes some cleaning out. Normally I rinse them with avgas, drained out of the wing, but the result has to be dumped somewhere…
The filling adaptor is small enough to be wrapped up in a rag and that’s it.
