Will the engine run on water? Almost found out!

[Marauder]

Matt - glad you caught this! I know the recommendation is to sniff the AvGas. Personally, as a chemist and knowing what is in it, I wouldn’t. Another way to check is to place a drop on a piece of white paper. If the fuel evaporates quickly, it is AvGas. If it leaves a residue or halo, it is Jet-A.


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[jaylw314]

2 hours ago, Bartman said:

Maybe a good idea to just carry some wide painters tape and cover each cap when parked on the ramp and rain expected.  I think I'll do that this weekend. 

Or these silicone suction bowl lids

[DonMuncy]

"The Mooney Miser" (now deceased), at one time sold covers for gas caps while parked. I have a pair of them. They are far from complicated. I would be glad to share details on how to make a set.

[N6018Q]

23 minutes ago, DonMuncy said:

"The Mooney Miser" (now deceased), at one time sold covers for gas caps while parked. I have a pair of them. They are far from complicated. I would be glad to share details on how to make a set.

Please do... before @jaylw314 costs me more money.  Or these silicone suction bowl lids

[jaylw314]

20 minutes ago, N6018Q said:

Please do... before @jaylw314 costs me more money.  Or these silicone suction bowl lids

What??? Oh come on, does $10 get me kicked out of the CB club?

[Bartman]

Those silicone lids look awesome.  Great idea! I bet they stick right to smooth paint and don't really have any seal or suction, just friction.

Painters tape is still available for the die-hard CB's, but I'm not that cheap.  

 

[mike_elliott]

5 hours ago, Yetti said:

This was an interesting point I learned while parking overnight away.  The Gatts jar has a bigger plunger which works great on the tanks sump.  But when I used the little cup that came with the plane, I was able to sump the fuel selector with the little cup and not having to get inside and pull the ring.  The little cup has a smaller diameter plunger.  

That smaller diameter plunger is not designed to be "sumped" and can be damaged by burring it when using a little cup to sump it. Thats why they put the pull ring on it.

[jaylw314]

22 minutes ago, mike_elliott said:

That smaller diameter plunger is not designed to be "sumped" and can be damaged by burring it when using a little cup to sump it. Thats why they put the pull ring on it.

It also might be a potential leak if you forget to check if the pull ring is down all the way once your back in the cabin

[Hank]

I put in fluorosilicone orings at annual in January. Just sat outside in daily thunderstorms from midday Friday to this morning--nary a drop of water in the tanks.

[FloridaMan]

7 hours ago, Bartman said:

Maybe a good idea to just carry some wide painters tape and cover each cap when parked on the ramp and rain expected.  I think I'll do that this weekend. 

I do this exact thing. Three strips wide to cover the fuel cap. I guess it might make a line guy think twice before gassing you up with Jet-A as well. I've thought that a silicon disk with a rare earth magnet in the middle would be a good cap cover for on the ground as well. 

ETA: Nevermind; just read the rest of the thread and saw those bowl covers. 

[DonMuncy]

Gas cap covers

They are made up of three components. 

First is the covers themselves, which are perfectly circular and approximately 6 inches in diameter.  The size must be large enough to cover an area around the gas cap with enough extra for the sealing material.  Mine are made of some kind of plastic, which is semi-rigid, but a non-bendable aluminum or even a clear plastic like plexiglas or lexan would work as well.  Mine are about 1/16th inch thick, but again, I don't see why something a little thicker wouldn't work as well.

Second is the sealing material.  It is merely a strip of foam rubber like one would buy to fit around a door for weather stripping.  It is sold at hardware stores here and has a self adhesive on one side; you merely pull off a paper strip and adhere it to the outer edge of the cover.  This weather stripping is about 3/16ths inch thick and 3/8ths inch wide.  Neither of these dimensions are critical, but it must be bendable enough to go around the cover without buckling or wrinkling. 

Lastly, the fastener.  Mine use what I call "super velcro", but is more technically called  "recloseable fastener".  One type is "3M Dual Lock Reclosable Fasteners", but there are others.  (Ordinary Velcro is not strong enough).  On mine, the fastener is about 3/8th inch square. (Too small and it won't hold; too large and you couldn't pull them off.)  One side of the fastener is permanently glued to the cover and one half to the lever of the gas cap.

Depending on whether the cover flexes a little or not, you may have to shim the fastener away from the cover. Ideally, when the covers are installed, the foam is compressed a little to keep water from running under it.

Don

[carusoam]

One thing about the method of the leak...

the amount of rain that can get in is quite large...

It’s not just the rain that falls on the cap or near the seal... but all the rain that falls uphill from the cap...

The rain runs down, and usually crosses the cap... except when the seal isn’t being made...

A pint of water can show up after a good rain storm...

A full sample cup looks close enough to being light blue... The mind is expecting it to be light blue...  

the eye doesn’t see a minuscus when it is 100% water...

select a second test...

1) hold it against the white surface... it should be noticeably blue...

2) Smell it... it should only smell lightly of 100LL... expect the mind to want to believe is is smelling 100L... Some people’s Proboscuses don’t work as well as they did when they were younger... (things to look forward to...) 

3) pour it on white paper...

4) evaporation test...

5) My favorite... Spit In it... if a ball of spit tries to sink, it looks funny, but it’s probably fuel.... if the spit floats and spreads out on top...that is water in the sample cup... a very fast test.

6) If Both fuel caps take a different amount of effort to open... one is tighter then other...  tight is good...

7) Hard to open? Possibly too tight... probably won’t gain you anything by being too tight....

8) Easy to open? Possibly too loose... probably won’t seal out the rain...

Just a PP summarizing what he sees in this thread...

Best regards,

-a-

[Hank]

But--hard to open can also mean "installed crooked," or lots of water in the tank after a hard rain.  

[FloridaMan]

13 hours ago, Hank said:

But--hard to open can also mean "installed crooked," or lots of water in the tank after a hard rain.  

That was my experience. Only time I ever got water in my tanks. 

[bradp]

Had the installed crooked happen once by an FBO and then it rained.  Spent a couple of hours draining water and shaking the wing and even then I flew on the good tank home.  Now I supervise my fueling or do it myself. 

Shake the wings if you have any water contamination and wait a few minutes - it help get water through the drain holes at the bottom of each rib to travel to the lowest point.

[Guitarmaster]

Airplane sat on the ramp in a torrential downpour last week. There was exactly zero water in the tanks.

I am positive now the water came from the truck. They had a different place they were fueling the truck and there was a problem with the first place so I am now convinced that's where the water came from.

Stay vigilant guys and gals! I have been getting fuel from this, well-known, brand name FBO for 4 years and never had a problem. It only takes once.

 

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[ArtVandelay]

My plane is hangared and I still drain fuel before every flight, I figure I could have sediment that’s settled out.