DIY Gascolator

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:54:52 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

On Nov 17, 3:27 pm, wrote:
Tractor "sediment bowls" are available at TSC for about $55 Canadian.

They have glass bouls thugh, and in Canada you will not get the OK on
a homebuilt / experimental with a glass bowl.

Didn't know that. Got a glass one on my Jodel, but it was
licensed in the '70s. It's a thickwalled (1/4" or 5/16" thick) glass
tube, actually, with cast aluminum or zinc top and bottom pieces. Not
likely to break unless I drop it on the concrete at annual time.
I think, since we have a lathe and mill here, I'll just buy a
chunk of 2" 6061T6 aluminum round bar and machine my own for the
Hummelbird. 2011T3 would be better if I could find it.

Dan

Thinkong of doing the same for mine.

wrote in message
...
On Nov 17, 3:27 pm, wrote:
Tractor "sediment bowls" are available at TSC for about $55 Canadian.

They have glass bouls thugh, and in Canada you will not get the OK on
a homebuilt / experimental with a glass bowl.

Didn't know that. Got a glass one on my Jodel, but it was
licensed in the '70s. It's a thickwalled (1/4" or 5/16" thick) glass
tube, actually, with cast aluminum or zinc top and bottom pieces. Not
likely to break unless I drop it on the concrete at annual time.
I think, since we have a lathe and mill here, I'll just buy a
chunk of 2" 6061T6 aluminum round bar and machine my own for the
Hummelbird. 2011T3 would be better if I could find it.

Dan



I am working on a 1962 Cessna 150 for a customer. It has a glass
bowl gascolator. Gravity feed system. O-200, similiar fuel flow to
a vee dub! The "bowl" is a length of heavy wall glass tubing cut and
flame polished on both ends. Cast housing at the top, and a cast plate on
the bottom. Both seal with flat gaskets. Cylindrical screen
down the center. Input connection, Primer connection, and output
connection to the carb.

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )

wrote in message

snip
Oh, Man. That problem--the disappearance of many components--is
an increasing pain already. I went to the local Radio Shack last week
to buy a couple of 9-volt battery terminal clips and they didn't have
any and the catalog showed them as discontinued. Can you feature that?
And the big electronics shop in the city doesn't have roller-lever
microswitches or a decent selection of potentiometers or even a DPDT
spring-center-off toggle switch. Nor dop they have the employees who
know anything about some of this stuff. It seems that 99.9% of people
are buying everything instead of building it, and either contracting
out the repair of it or tossing it and buying a new one. Sad. And
that's why so many of our young folks have no idea what's under the
hood of a car or the cowl of an airplane, or even inside a simple
switch or lawnmower engine.

Dan

Try mouser electronics. On line at http://www.mouser.com .

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )

Hmmm, I guess a gascolator is a fancy name for a sediment bowl. My 1955 John
Deere had a sediment bowl. If I had called it a gascolator I would have been
laughed out of the county.
wrote in message
...
.

So a gascolator is simply a water separator, OK?
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More or less, yes.

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I thought it a lot more complicated -
an easy way to get lost in explanations.
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It IS a lot more complicated. The body of the Gascolator provides a
place to attach various fuel lines. On a simple airplane -- one
lacking even a fuel pump -- the Gascolator offers more convenience
than other methods..

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-) why does one want a water separator apart from the fuel filter?
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I give up. Why?
In fact, most Gascolators DO provide for fuel filtering as well as
water separation.

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In my house's heating, there's a filter cartridge in a glass bowl,
and when I ran the tank dry it sure filled up with water (and smudge).
Isn't it sufficient to mount the fuel filter at the lowest point,
and have a water drain valve on its bottom?
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Yes, a water drain at the lowest point should prevent water from
reaching the burner. But I am not familiar with the oil burners used
by many Americans. Based on your description I suspect there is an
auxiliary circuit open to the atmosphere that is only allowed to drain
when the main tank is completely empty, but that is only a guess.

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-) is there a finer fuel filter in the Ford A & T, or only the
strainer in the tank?

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No; not as a stock item. As I recall, the strainer fits down inside
the filler neck and there were a number of after-market filters that
offered a finer mesh than the stock filter.
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Do you recommend a finer filter, either
between tank and gascolator or between gascolator and carb?

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That's two questions :-)

The Gascolator has a finer filter than the one in the filler neck.
You should not need any additional filtering.

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-) why the "sintered bronze muffler" on the exit?
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Because the 'exit' of the Gascolator is the inlet to the carburetor.

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actually, what is a "sintered bronze muffler"?
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A muffler -- the types vary -- is standard equipment for pneumatically-
powered tools, which have an extremely high noise signature. Sintered
bronze mufflers do not corrode nor 'pack-up' like some other types of
mufflers.

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Does it serve as a filter, perhaps?
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See the above.

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-) for the receiver body, I should like clear plastic:
less delicate than glass, but unlike metal, it shows what's happening.
There must surely be clear plastics that resist gasoline?
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I'm sure there is but the goal here is to describe a Gascolator that
can be fabricated by the typical homebuilder. As for showing what's
happening, it would ALWAYS show full; there would be nothing to see.
As for plastic vs glass or metal, my personal preference -- and that
of many other homebuilders -- is to keep keep the amount of flammable
materials forward of the firewall to an absolute minimum.

-R.S.Hoover