DIY Crank Handle for Engine Preservation

“I’ll try to rig ya’ up some sorta’ handle … ” (Jack Ridley, The Right Stuff)

We picked up this nice little IO-360-A1A not long ago—a running motor with good oil analysis and compression numbers at a price we couldn’t refuse. We’re planning on putting it on a project we have going, but probably not for at least another year—so I am just kind of going over it, lubricating things, doing a little preservation … Now, Lycoming’s preservation procedure assumes that the engine has just been run or at least is mounted on an airframe or test stand. We don’t have that luxury, so I am just turning things over, moving some oil through the system, spraying preservation oil in the cylinders—and all that means I need to turn the crank a few times. With no prop and the engine close to the floor, that can be a problem—using a big screwdriver jammed between the prop drive lugs is common, but it can scratch up surfaces I don’t like scratched—so what we needed was a simple handle to make it easier.

No, it’s not the world’s most inefficient propeller (wait a minute … it probably is!)—it’s just a piece of handy fiberboard with a standard prop flange layout traced on it, then cut on a band saw and drilled with some auger bits. Fine-thread half-inch bolts and washers from the hardware store make it complete. One caveat—you are not going to turn the engine over a compression stroke with this short handle—it’s only useful when the plugs are out, which is convenient because the only time we are going to turn it over is when we are distributing that preservation oil all around. Once we get it all preserved, we won’t be turning it again until we are getting close to “unpreserving it”—but I’ll probably leave the handle on just to protect the crank’s prop flange.

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