oil access door

[Jerrytex]

About ready to paint my cowling and realized that I should probably put an oil access door in the upper cowling to check the oil. Looking for ideas, advice, pics, etc. on the best way to do this.

[Danny]

Kiftox sells an oil access door kit with instructions on how to proceed. I'm in the process of installing now. Straightforward & easy.
Danny
Super Sport
99% complete-almost

[Jerrytex]

I am about to cut an access door in the cowling to be able to check the oil but know I am having second thoughts. I am wonderring if most people have an oil access door? I have to cut in at least a 6 inch square door to get my hand around the oil tank and unscrew the cap to access the dipstick. This seems like a big opening and half of the door is behind the firewall. Just curious if this is something that most kitfoxes have? The alternative is to unscrew the cowling every flight but that might be a good thing to be able to check everything else out? Thoughts?

[Dorsal]

Such an access door is standard on the current designs, personally it would be a real pain not having it.

[HighWing]

I had a little different take on this when I built my first Model IV. I hadn't flown for about twenty years and had done the long overdue BFR in a Citabria which meant a check out in that airplane. The preflight checklist had something like the following - check the oil level and look for any loose or chafed wires. This while looking through the little 4X4 access door.
I felt that I had built this puppy and had an understanding about what all those possibly chafed wires were all about but a limited understandng on what all could go wrong. For 900 hours, I lifted off the top cowl to check the oil at every preflight. Among the things I found were the broken ignition module mounts - twice. I have already painted the new Model IVs cowl with no oil access door. Do I recommend this? Not necessarily. This is just to suggest that there might be something more to check under the hood than the oil.

Lowell

[akflyer]

I am with Lowell on this one. I like to look under the hood each and every time before I fly to check water level, loose wires, hoses, oil leaks etc. Takes an extra 30 seconds to pop the cowl off and get a good look under the hood. I do this summer and winter rain or shine.

[Dorsal]

Can't argue with that, I pull my top cowl every ~5 hours, more often couldn't hurt. If I fly out for lunch I will check the oil before the flight back but would probably not pop the top.

[DesertFox6]

I have an oil access door on my Model IV Speedster's aft top cowl for occasional quick-checks but remove the top front cowl after the last flight of the day once the beastie is in her hangar. A good post-flight allows checking everything while the evidence, and oil, is still hot but I use the oil-door for the dip-stick access. The next pre-flight is always easier since she's already prepped for inspection, but the oil cooler door has another plus for us Desert Fox types, in that you can open it up to allow some cool-down during our blast-furnace summers while you stop for lunch.

The ignition modules always thank me for that courtesy in keeping the under-cowl temps from melting them!

"E.T."

[Jerrytex]

Thank you all for the opinions. I think I might just go ahead and cut one in since it would be difficult to do after paint. But I think I am going to still pull the cowling for preflight. Thanks again. This forum is a great resource.

[Monocock]

Before you look at the pictures below, I would like to make it quite clear that this isn't my tidy handywork, it is that of someone far more skilled than me!!!



I too tend to take the top cowl off before the first flight of the day, even though the oil door is there.

[cap01]

even if you plan to remove the cowl for preflight you should probably install a oil service door . there will be times when your off somewhere and the airplane has set for a while and your going to want to purge before you start up again . also , if its just to make sure you installed the oil cap , you dont want to have to remove the cowl just for that.