A few things

[JohnF]

1. West System Epoxy kit from Aircraft Spruce with 'slow' activator won't harden. One pump from West's "Mini Pumps" of resin and one pump of activator, stirred for a minute or so...three days and things are just sticky, and not hardening. West sending replacements, want resin/activator back to check what's wrong. I have a real mess of resin that won't harden, yet is just gooey and sticky enough to be difficult to remove.

2. Hose from left side of oil cooler touches top of muffler and can't really be raised much...not certain what to do here. I doubt fire sleeve should bear against the muffler...thinking about trying to wrap it with Fiberfrax but don't like that either.

[gblwy]

Re: Point 2, mine is the same. I plan to shorten the bracket holding it, but I'm not convinced that's good enough.

Cheers...Keith

[ArlingtonRV]

I had the same problem. I loosened up the nut on the exhaust pipe and rotated the braket outboard (sliding the clamp over the line a little outboard also) so that it was at an angle pointing outboard rather then straigh up and down, then retightnened the nut. That created a gap of about 3/8" between the oil line and exhuast tube. After 30 hours of flight there are no signs of trouble or excess heat in the oil line.

[Jetguy]

Which hose are we talking about? Is this the left hose as in my left while sitting in the cockpit facing forward? Furthermore is this the hose coming from the external oil tank from behind the engine to the oil cooler? Do you guys know how to tie wrap and make stand offs?

John
RV12 N1212K

[JohnF]

Yes, I know how to make stand offs, and to use tie wraps. There is no room for a standoff, and there is nothing to tie to.... your turn

[JBPILOT]

Can you post a good picture of it ?

John Bender

[JohnF]

Photo tomorrow .. will be trying to remove the sticky/pasty West Resin that won't harden from the cooling tunnel...not fun.

[Wayne Gillispie]

to see how it performs. Also the pumps are not as accurate as a digital gram scale. I use the pumps just to dispense into cups then weigh them to get the correct ratio.

[yankee-flyer]

Did you "prime" both pumps before shooting the measured amounts? Mine set up faster than I really wanted in 85 deg temps.

Wayne 120241

[n8zg]

John -

Regarding the epoxy problem... I'd recommend you throw the pumps in the trash and use a scale to measure your epoxy. People I know well and who's opinions I respect have suggested that the ratio/mix tolerances are so wide that it's difficult to mess up a batch of West epoxy, but my experience has been different. I've had several instances of the West epoxy failing to cure, but not since I switched to a digital scale. My pumps leaked down, and the first stroke after some small period of sitting around was never a full measure. You'll find that you waste a lot less epoxy with the scale, too - you can mix what you need rather than multiples of full pump-strokes.

I paid less than $20 at the local pawn/gold panning supply shop for a small digital pocket scale with 0.01 gram resolution. If you're building up fairings, you'll probably make many 60- & 90-gram batches (I don't work fast enough to get the good out of bigger batches). But there will be times when you just need a dab - like your kid's broken toy that warrants something better than Elmer's, or a dime-size low spot that needs one or two plies of patch to bring it up closer to level with the surrounding areas. I don't often mix batches smaller than 18 grams, but the high resolution helps prevent overshooting the target weight.