The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Ok, another novice question: I have my 170B fully opened up (interior removed, inspection covers open, etc) and I am wondering what I should (or should not) do to clean out the interior. The plane was built with a seaplane kit so it has pretty good corrosion protection, but it was on floats in salt water for a short time recently. There is a moderate amount of accumulated gunk in the belly areas where oil and stuff has collected. I recall a discussion about using (or not?) Simple Green, but don't remember whether it is recommended or not.
Overall the belly is fairly clean and I am tempted to leave it alone, but I thought I would ask the Forum rather than learn afterwards that I should have done this or that.
Comments?

Simple Green when it first came out was touted as a miracle aircraft cleaner by some. It was bought and certified by the military. But shortly thereafter if was found to be corrosive or maybe the way it was being used was the cause of corrosion, in either case it was not good.

This from the Simple Green web site. I've added the underline.

http://simplegreen.com/faqs/

• ▶ Aluminum — Is it safe to use Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner on aluminum?
  When used with caution and according to the instructions, Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner has been safely and successfully used to clean aluminum. Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner, Crystal Simple Green Industrial Cleaner & Degreaser, and Simple Green Pressure Washer Concentrates have been used on aircraft, automotive, industrial and consumer aluminum items for over 20 years. However, caution and common sense must be used: aluminum is a soft metal that easily corrodes with unprotected exposure to water. The aqueous-base and alkalinity of Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner can accelerate the corrosion process. Therefore, contact times for unprotected or unpainted aluminum surfaces should be kept as brief as the job will allow - never for more than 10 minutes. Large cleaning jobs should be conducted in smaller-area stages to achieve lower contact time. Rinsing after cleaning should always be extremely thorough - paying special attention to flush out cracks and crevices to remove all Simple Green product residues. Unfinished, uncoated or unpainted aluminum cleaned with Simple Green products should receive some sort of protectant after cleaning to prevent oxidation.
  Simple Green has also developed break-through water based cleaners that are safe for use on metals, plastics, rubber and high tech alloys. Extreme Simple Green Aircraft & Precision Cleaner, Pro Series Simple Green Automotive Cleaner, and Simple Green Pro HD are available on both the industrial and retail markets, respectively. These products were initially developed for the aircraft industry and extensive testing shows that they are safe and effective on a variety of metals and other sensitive surfaces even in the most extreme circumstances.
  Simple Green Stainless Steel One Step Cleaner & Polish is another option for cleaning polished aluminum. This product is designed for light duty metal cleaning and polishing.

Then came Extreme Simple Green. This product once again is touted and sold specifically to be non-corrosive. It undoubtably has been tested.

From their web site:

• ▶ Aircrafts — Is Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner safe for cleaning aircraft?
  Simple Green manufactures a product specifically designed for use on aircraft — Extreme Simple Green Aircraft & Precision Cleaner. This product was initially developed for use in the aircraft industry and extensive testing shows it to be safe for use on aluminum, plastics, rubber, and high tech alloys, in both normal and extreme temperatures and stress conditions. Extreme Simple Green passed a variety of aircraft industry tests. Testing has been performed by Scientific Materials International, Inc. and is available upon request.

I think the major problem the makers of Simple Green have is they have several different products all with the same basic name. I can never remember which one I should be using and so I don't use any on my airplane. Yes the label on Extreme Simple Green says it is safe but I wouldn't feel good about using it given at one time I was told Simple Green was good but found to be bad.

To be totally fair, I'm not a clean fanatic when it comes to oil residue on my aircraft. I figure more oil equal less corrosion. And so I rarely clean my aircraft of it. If I had a big blob of oil soaked dirt in the belly I'd probably just hit it with some WD-40 and whip it out with a rag and not worry I got it totally clean.

I cleaned out 81D with a bunch of microfiber rags and odorless mineral oil.
The microfiber picks up every little thing and doesn't let go. Ours was pretty bad (still not all done) and I thought that bottle brushes would help in the tight spots. Fill a spray bottle with the mineral oil to make things easy and get the tough spots to soak.

I also found an orange grease cutter at Home Depot that doesn't seem to react with aluminum.

After all that, I sprayed everything down with WD40 (poor man's corrosion prevention)

Welcome to the association. Thanks for letting us know your level of understanding in this aspect of aircraft ownership. If you use the search engine you will find sufficient reading to invest a significant amount of your time whenever you desire to on numerous topics. This organization is full of talented individuals, likely your back round might help us out in other areas, so you may be a 170 novice but we are all novices in one area or another (ie Miles our resident rocket scientist and my understanding ;the closest I got was playing with fireworks)
Here's a basic thought to keep in mind when cleaning. You want to remove contaminants without causing damage. As an example, its better to vacuum out sand than to wipe sand out. Most of the damage to planes that allow corrosion is by mechanical means and if a rag is used to wipe out the belly likely your rag will retain the sand and now you're rag is acting like sandpaper. If your belly has a fair amount of oil in it, it will be harder to remove by vacuuming accumulated debris; in that case try drying out the plane by dabbing rags rather than wiping. You're also likely to find a very black tar like material which was applied by Cessna to reduce sound. You can leave it in place or remove it using various mineral spirits but again try to avoid mechanically inducing damage. In other words like most things take you time, don't be in a rush.
Lastly, great question, don't be shy to ask more as you'll find I may have missed something which someone else will remember.

Shop vac, gasoline, degreasers, mineral spirits, laquor thiner, lots of rags and elbow grease. I never tried simple green.

You'll feel a lot better about your plane when you remove all the gunk. No one else will ever appreciate all your hard work but you will have the personal satisfaction!! You also might find some interesting surprises...wear gloves!

I've said it elsewhere (and you can likely find it with a "search"...) but I'll say it again: The AIRCRAFT Simple Green..... permanently stained my left flap. (Del Lehman's shop used the stain as a method to identify which flap was the left one when they repaired them for me.) I had tried their new product after the Simple Green representative sent me a free sample as her method of "convincing me" that they had a fantastic new product which was especially FOR aluminum airplanes.

When I sent her the report and evidence of the damage their product caused when it was sprayed on my polished aluminum flap... she became abusive and rude.

Now you know why I will never endorse Simple Green for any purpose around airplanes.

Thank you all for the good comments. Elbow grease seems the best product.

elbow grease and avgas will clean just about any petrolium product. Just gotta wear gloves.

For bilges and other greasy places I use WD 40 to loosen the grimy stuff then wipe it out.

T. C. Downey wrote:For bilges and other greasy places I use WD 40 to loosen the grimy stuff then wipe it out.

WHOOO_HOOOOO! My FAVORITE!

Just be careful. WD-40 IS flammable. (So is avgas.)

I wonder, if the product was called simple RED would George be endorsing the stuff ?

c170b53 wrote:I wonder, if the product was called simple RED would George would be endorsing the stuff ?

The things we wonder about eh JIm? I've always though it peculiar George is not a fan of the very RED MMO.

gahorn wrote:

T. C. Downey wrote:For bilges and other greasy places I use WD 40 to loosen the grimy stuff then wipe it out.

WHOOO_HOOOOO! My FAVORITE!

Just be careful. WD-40 IS flammable. (So is avgas.)

I also use engine preservation oil. it's a 10 weight oil that has a preservative in it. and it will creep into the lap seams. can be bought from AS&S

Bruce Fenstermacher wrote:

c170b53 wrote:I wonder, if the product was called simple RED would George would be endorsing the stuff ?

The things we wonder about eh JIm? I've always though it peculiar George is not a fan of the very RED MMO.

It hazards FAA violations and cancels insurance policies too quickly!