We recently replaced every fuel and oil hose with Aircraft Specialty, LLC?s Teflon lined hoses. Included was their Thermostasis unit and fittings kit offer. Steve at Aircraft Specialty, LLC was very helpful and delivered excellent/superior customer support and effort. He was proactive in heading off any possible pitfalls in preparation and planning for the hoses. For example, since each RV-12 may have some variation in position of fuel and oil pressure transducers, the lengths and any adapter fittings of the associated hoses are important, even critical. He questioned me to make sure that would order the correct lengths and fittings. Note that the Thermostasis kit as advertised on the Aircraft Specialty, LLC website does not include hoses to the oil pressure transducer and the hose from the bottom of the engine to the oil reservoir. I added those hoses with my measurements to the order so that all oil hoses would be ?lifetime? hoses as well as all of the fuel hoses.
I opted to essentially lay the Thermostasis unit and hoses on top of the fuel hoses. It was time consuming giving separation between hoses, hose to airframe, engine, and engine appurtenance using zip ties and RTV. A lot of time and effort by trial and error was taken keeping the hoses from contacting the top cowling. However, in the end, we were satisfied at how the installation turned out.
We had no leaks except for the fuel ?in? port on the brand new, Rotax supplied fuel pump. The leak appeared to be caused by a slight groove on the sealing face of the ?in? port of the fuel pump. This was remedied by polishing both the sealing face of the ?in? port of the fuel pump and the consequential ridge affected to the copper washer by using progressively finer sand paper and then a polishing compound.
Now, with the Thermostasis unit, we no longer have any wasted time waiting only for warming of the engine because by the time we do most of the pre-take off check list and taxi to the run-up area, the engine is at or above 120 deg. F. So far, the Thermostasis unit appears to keep the oil temp. around 190 deg. F, as designed, most of the time.
I opted to essentially lay the Thermostasis unit and hoses on top of the fuel hoses. It was time consuming giving separation between hoses, hose to airframe, engine, and engine appurtenance using zip ties and RTV. A lot of time and effort by trial and error was taken keeping the hoses from contacting the top cowling. However, in the end, we were satisfied at how the installation turned out.
We had no leaks except for the fuel ?in? port on the brand new, Rotax supplied fuel pump. The leak appeared to be caused by a slight groove on the sealing face of the ?in? port of the fuel pump. This was remedied by polishing both the sealing face of the ?in? port of the fuel pump and the consequential ridge affected to the copper washer by using progressively finer sand paper and then a polishing compound.
Now, with the Thermostasis unit, we no longer have any wasted time waiting only for warming of the engine because by the time we do most of the pre-take off check list and taxi to the run-up area, the engine is at or above 120 deg. F. So far, the Thermostasis unit appears to keep the oil temp. around 190 deg. F, as designed, most of the time.