Burning oil off manifold, how long to stop smoking?

[R1 Indy]

I lost around 2L of oil from my oil filter, a fair bit went onto the exhaust manifold(and caught fire).

Things have now been cleaned up as best as possible, but impossible to fully clean the manifold without removing it from the car.

I thought a couple of heat cycles of idling would burn it off.

It has now had around 5 heat cycles, and it is still smoking a fair bit.


I don't want to risk driving it, as I do not want another fire!

How long should it take to burn off this oil?

Or am I going to have to have another go at de-greasing?

[Howard-]

Wait for it to cool down a bit then use a regular degreaser or even just a bit of soapy water and an old rag. You should have no difficulty cleaning enough off so that it merely smells a bit "warm" for a few days. I've occasionally spilt/left a bit of oil (granted, not 2 litres of the stuff though...) on manifolds and never had any consequences like yours!

[pringle1988]

This happened to a friend of mine and it took a very long time to burn off. We ran the car just at idle and kept a close eye on it until only a little bit of smoke was coming off. It never caught fire but there probably wasn't a lot of heat in it from just idling.

I know some people steam clean their engines. Its not something id personally do but it could be an option to help shift the bulk of it away.

Sorry I cant be of more help.

[Muncher]

Pour some degreaser over it, that will sort it out pretty much straight away. Failing that fairy liquid will probably do the trick,. albeit it not so well.

[R1 Indy]

Cheers guys,

Just took the heat shield back off, and noticed it's gone very black.

Started the car up, and amazingly no smoke.

So looks like the material inside the heat shield is still got oil soaked inside!
I did bath it in de-greaser, but looks like it needs a bit more....

[hidetheelephants]

Removing oil from insulating pads is pretty much impossible; if you can buy a replacement I'd do that.

[R1 Indy]

hidetheelephants said:

Removing oil from insulating pads is pretty much impossible; if you can buy a replacement I'd do that.

Yea I came to that conclusion.

So I've just ripped the pads out of the shield for now and will keep an eye on eBay for a replacement.