Aviation & Car tech: Reviews, How to's, Products, Shows, Design & Manufacturing, photography, video, Home built aircraft, UAV / RC, General Aviation, Car fix & mod
I’m Proud to announce Autobooks-Aerobooks will be selling both of my technical books in their California Book store. If your in the area stop by to check it out.
I recently replaced the fuel lines & fuel primer bulb in my 4 cycle high end weed eater. It is a lesson in the long term damaging effects of Ethanol in a fuel system not rated for it.
I’ve seen transparent / yellow tint fuel lines used in aviation from powered parashoots to high performance home built aircraft. If your running 100 LL or marine gas 100% of the time you should be good. however if you occasional or full time run normal auto gas with Ethanol in it you should look for potential signs of damage in your fuel system.
The Yellow lines are more visually obvious when they fail, if you have a black rubber hose then check for signs of cracking, turning grey or brown and do the flex test looking for cracking.
if one of the lines splits like what is shown above at best case your engine will be starved of fuel and you will become a glider. at worst case a roman candle.
Hopefully this will save someone from having a bad day.
Spencer
EAA Technical Counselor in Power plant / Fire wall forward & Composites
For more info on the EAA Technical Counselor
program visit:
We do have a good amount of automotive content on the website, some of the technologies, methods etc translate between Auto & Aero usage. If you can be comfortable & confident wrenching on a Car then it goes a long way to wrenching on an Airplane.
Last night I got a check engine light, rough running engine & idle along with a wicked vacuum cleaner sound from the top of the engine. pulling out the OBD2 scanner I got codes P0106 & P1101. Since I got a good amount of engine vent system experience on one of my older cars it did not take long to figure out what was going on.
My car is a 2014 with 54K on the clock. I could have been the helpless consumer waiting a half day to get a flat bed tow into the dealer and spending a small mountain of money on the fix. My Mechanical prowess took over, took on the job and got it done.
Good deal for anyone looking to buy some Carbon, Fiberglass, Cores, epoxy &/or processing supplies
Promo code is CARBON18
Beyond being a long time customer of Fiberglast I have no affiliate relation to them. Thought I should let the readers of the website, Books and social media following know.
Many options & combinations with this gas lens kit.
The long ceramic cups allow easy access to tight spots like this flight control weldment. The slender profile of this cup allows good visibility on the weld and access for the filler rod.
As an EAA Technical Counselor I can vouch for the value of these work shops for people first starting out. I got my start at the how to build centers at Oshkosh in the early 90’s. These work shops are more intense and longer duration then the ones at SNF & Oshkosh.
If your in the south east and are new to aircraft construction, interested in building a plane and want to do stuff correctly, efficiently the first time on your build than this is your ticket.
Gould Aero 