D

dgrayent

Active Member
I wonder if anyone has seen or tried Steve's remote drain gascolator at the following site. It will be at the bottom of the page (if I did this right??) Looks like good idea. May be some one has developed a Rube Goldberg for the same thing? PICS please?

I can't be sure, but maybe the overall height is too awkward to fit in the usual (plans callout) place for the gascolator. But, on the other hand, No hole is cut in my firewall yet....

Any suggestions or advice is appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Don Gray
Cortland, OH
N17QB 7A in progress


http://www.stevesaircraft.com/gascolator.htm
 
Last edited:
Don,

I am not sure I'd bother with a remote drain, because what I have found (and confirmed with at least two others) is that I really don't get much drainage from the gascolator anyway. When I built mine, I extended the gascolator sump drain with some aluminum tubing, and put the quick-drain down at the bottom of the cowl, where I could open it with my fuel sampler probe. When I tried to do this early after I started putting fuel in the airplane, I could never get anything to come out (maybe just a couple drops). I figured that it was due to initial debris from the fuel system plugging up the bowl drain (which would mean it was doing its job!), and took it apart twice, only to find that it was perfectly clean.

It was another owner who had the same experience that gave me what I believe to be a reasonable explaination. Since this is a low-wing airplane, with the tanks below the gascolator, you are effectivly creating an air lock in the system (without the fuel pump running), so when you open the drain valve, nothing comes out. We confirmed this by turning on the fuel pump, and sure enough, then I could drain the bowl. Based on this, I wouldn't go to a lot of effort to make a remote drain - it probably won't work much better. I of course always sump the tank drains to check for water and debris before flight!

Admittedly, this theory is from a limited sample of people, and I could very easily be corrected by others with more experience...

Paul
 
Paul's right, on a tailwheel airplane the tanks are lower than the gascolator. To effectively drain the gascolator, the boost pump must be running. The problem I have with a remote drain is; how do you catch the sample from a remote location? You do want to catch the sample, don't you? Otherwise how will you know if you have water?
Mel...DAR
 
Hum-m-m. I see. ...Makes perfect sense to me. ...Little if any pressure head. I guess my high wing experience (no low wing) has shown through. :eek: I'll follow the posts, keeping in mind your good advice.

Mel, I see your postings on many of the forums and respect your opinions highly as well as others. I wish you could get up her to NE Ohio as my DAR someday. :)

I will now post another question on the general forum. Here goes.

Don Gray
Cortland, OH
N17QB 7A in progress
 
Hey,
I don't have a problem going to Ohio. All I need is a little notice and some travel money. I've done several inspections in Dodge City and Wichita, KS. I think the fartherest I've gone was to Buffalo, Wyoming for a pre-buy inspection. Now that I've retired after over 40 years with Texas Instruments, I have a better schedule.
Mel...DAR
 
I flew a 172 with a remote drain gascolator at one of my flight schools. I'm not sure whether it was standard for that era ('65) or a retrofit. The control was on the panel, and part of the pre-start checklist was to hold the drain open for a certain amount of time (5 seconds?) to clear the bowl. Which means you blindly dumped fuel on who knows what. It just drained out from under the cowl. You couldn't see it, couldn't check for debris or water, couldn't even tell if it was draining except by the smell. Which points out the other problem... you then started the engine right over a pool of gasoline. :eek:

OK, it probably wasn't that big a deal, but I thought the whole idea was pretty dumb. Only other plane I'd flown at the time had a normal gascolator on the belly that you could sample from. Awkward to reach, but more confidence inspiring.
 
Mounting a gascolator in mooney fashon is how I would do it. Put the it right after the tanks come together, before the firewall and let it have a regular quickdrain instead of the remote mount... that might allow it to be drainable if the union of the fuel system is low enough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.