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So how big of a deal is this?

Plummit

Well Known Member
I've been noticing some little "specks" of oil or grease on my windscreen for the last couple of months. It was hard to tell where they came from but I've been suspecting the prop. Today I changed the oil so I took a close look at the prop and I *think* that the material is coming from one blade of my 3-blade Aero Composite prop. Two blades are bone dry where the blades enter the hub, but the third one appeared to be slightly "wet" and a little more dirty.

Aero Composite says their hub is basically a McCauley hub. So how big a deal is this? Prop overhaul time or something less?

-Marc
 
I may be remembering this wrong, but I believe that the three-blade hub on our Whirlwind is a copy of a McCauley, and it uses shims to keep the blades tight and not leak. If the shim has worn in, then you might get a little grease spitting out. We had that happen this summer on the way to Oshkosh. Whirlwind had a record of our prop's build, so they knew what shims were in there, and they sent me slightly thicker ones when I got home, and by going up a couple of thousandths, we stopped the spitting.

All this is useless info for you if I'm remembering the pedigree of the hubs wrong of course.....
 
If you have a grease fittings on the hub, one or both may be leaking. They don?t look defective by visual inspection. Replace them both and see what happens.

Do not archive
 
If you have a grease fittings on the hub, one or both may be leaking. They don?t look defective by visual inspection. Replace them both and see what happens.

Do not archive

May not even need to do that...just make sure the ball in the Zerk fitting is seated properly, and put new (nice and tight) rubber Zerk fitting caps on them.

Search on the forum turns up lots on prop grease fittings leaking.
 
Not all prop hubs have grease fittings of course......the three-blade Whirlwind doesn't - they are sealed at assembly with whatever they have in them.
 
Used hub

I bought an aero composit two blade. It like yours started to leak. I brought it to a propeller shop. They disassembled and repaired. What they found was used parts in the hub. What I thought would be new and what they advertised as new was new blades and a used hub. I was not happy but they have gon out of business so no recourse

GARY Specketer
 
If you have a grease fittings on the hub, one or both may be leaking. They don?t look defective by visual inspection. Replace them both and see what happens.

Do not archive

It's a 3-blade so I'll check it out and replace all 3 if that's what's there. It sure looked like it was coming out of one of the blades where it joins the hub but we'll see.

thanks
-Marc
 
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