Preheating schemes?

Errol

Haven't fired mine up for years either.

Technique for those who haven't ever seen and/or used.:

Fill with gas.
Pump pressure up..
Put hand over end of nozzle and crack valve.
Raw gas will hit your hand and fall into the preheat trough.
Shut valve off, remove hand (G) and light gas in preheat trough.
When most of this gas has burned, crack valve not pointing nozzle at
anything.
If hot enough will get the characteristic 'roar' and thin blue flame
that can be used to heat any thing (mine was used to heat a big old
soldering iron that you could almost weld with and to unfreeze frozen
water pipes up in Iowa.
If not preheated enough, will send a thin stream of fire (like a flame
thrower) out for three to ten feet depending on how much you open the
valve. Experience taught you how much you needed to pre heat to get
the gas to vaporize and burn properly.

When full of gas not a lot of room for the air pressure you pumped in
starting. After a little while of running that pressure would start
down. You just set on ground and pumped pressure back up while
running. You can't over pressurize and rupture tank as body made out
of heavy sheet metal and only has a little hand pump.

I need to get mine out of the corner pile of 'stuff' and rehab. You
never know when you might need something like that G

May get the buggy whip out at the same time.

Oh, those good ole days G


Big John


On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 22:13:22 GMT, Errol Groff
wrote:


A long time back Alaska Flyer magazine had an article about
overnighting on frozen lakes. The authors used a old fashion plumbers
blow torch and a length of cheap stove pipe to duct the heat to the
engine cowling. The torch could be refueled from the wing tank drain
so no extra fuel needed to be carried.

Although I have one of those old timey torches I have never attempted
to fire it up. Too chicken I guess.

Errol Groff
EAA 60159



On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 04:44:14 -0500, Michael Horowitz
wrote:

I'd be interested in any schemes you may have developed for
pre-heating your engine.

One idea I heard was to use flex ducting to direct car exhaust into
the cowling; that does present CO concerns, but on could leave the a/c
doors open. - Mike

Having read yesterdays post today, need to explain a little more.

There was a spring loaded switch in cockpit that controlled a valve
that let the gas go into the oil system. With engine running before
shut down you held this switch in on poisition for the number of
seconds that handbook told you to do for the expected temperature the
next day.

For example, 30 seconds for freezing, 60 seconds for 20 degrees, etc
(these are just examples not real life figures).

After putting the gas in oil, you had to run engine for a few minutes
so would mix and then thined oil get to all parts of engine.

Way I wrote, sound like you opened the oil cap and poured gas in prior
to shut down G No, no, no.

Big John


On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 23:52:36 -0600, Big John
wrote:

James

That was called "dilution". There was a schedule for different
temperatures and it told you how much gas to put in oil prior to shut
down. It took about 30 minutes at cruise power to boil the gas out of
the oil next day. You could take off with diluted oil if you had oil
pressure in the green.

Oh the good ole days. Haven't thought about 'dilution' in years. Tnx
for bringing up )

Big John

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:29:40 -0500 (EST), (James
Lloyd) wrote:

Years ago,we would put some gas into the oil right after shutdown and
that would keep it loose for quite a while and then just burn off when
running again.Jim

Yeah,I know what you mean John.Nowadays all we think about is what the
electronic box is telling us to do and you find less and less people to
ask info. from that have done it before.

I've been following this thread for a while and I'm surprised that
nobody mentioned an other type of oil heater. I had installed it in my
Grumann Tiger. It' been ten years since I've bought this heater so
perhaps it's not in the market any more.

The heater looks like an electronic circuit board. I think it was
rated at 200W, but don't nail me on that. You had to clean the bottom
of the oil pan and then the heater was glued to it. You secure the
110V plug so that it can't rip out the heater when pulled. You plug it
in and leave it connected all the time. The heat from the oil pan
travels up and keeps the engine warm enough not to have to be worried
about cold start. I guess if you live in Alaska you may want to wrap
your engine cowl with a blanket. In 1992 I paid about US$130 for it.
It was all over Trade a Plane. Never had a problem with it up here in
Toronto.

Yoram Leshinski

If electricity comes from electrons...
does that mean that morality comes from morons?





On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 04:44:14 -0500, Michael Horowitz
wrote:

I'd be interested in any schemes you may have developed for
pre-heating your engine.

One idea I heard was to use flex ducting to direct car exhaust into
the cowling; that does present CO concerns, but on could leave the a/c
doors open. - Mike

Big John wrote:
: If not preheated enough, will send a thin stream of fire (like a flame
: thrower) out for three to ten feet depending on how much you open the
: valve. Experience taught you how much you needed to pre heat to get
: the gas to vaporize and burn properly.

Sounds like this small camp-stove I've got. It was a garage-sale
special, but I love it. Runs on regular gasoline (Fill 'er up for $0.75
and go camping for two days). It isn't that big though, so it took a
helluva long time to boil water while winter camping in Fairbanks, AK in
-10 F... Ah... good times..

-Cory

--
************************************************** ***********************
* The prime directive of Linux: *
* - learn what you don't know, *
* - teach what you do. *
* (Just my 20 USm$) *
************************************************** ***********************

Sorry John,I forgot to say that we ran the eng. after adding the gas.Jim

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:24:17 -0500 (EST), (James
Lloyd) wrote:

For a cont. eng. with the oil tank,I have used a small 12 volt bev.
warmer and put it into the oil tank with an extention for the cig.
ligter plug to my car.It heats up the oil in about 6 mins.

Lloyd, very, VERY, bad practice. I deal with oils from a fluid power
standpoint, and the electric heaters for them have low "watts per
square inch" because of 2 things ... local high temperatures on the
element, and poor thermal conductivity of oil vs. water.

The 2 of these together cause oxidation of the oil which gets worse as
the heating element gets a buildup of partially burned oil.

And, if it does anything to (4 qts) of oil in 6 minutes, my guess
would be about 1 degree ... the calcs are not too hard with known
volume and wattage.

Typically from 10 to 30 watts/sq inch (lower for thicker, static
applications, higher for thinner, flowing situations) are used. Your
tank is static and probably has an SAE 50 fluid.

In contrast, long life elements (home water heater) are in the 40 to
70 w/in^2 range.

http://www.chromalox.com/Literature/TANK.PDF has much more than you
ever wanted to know.

If you use about 50 lbs/cu-ft and 0.5 BTU/lb/degreeF you will be
close.

The airplane you save may be your own ...

"- Barnyard BOb -" wrote in message
...


to fire it up. Too chicken I guess.

Errol Groff
EAA 60159
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Can I have it?

My Dad use to use one.
Of course, he's gone now.....


I suppose he brought it with him.:-(
--
---
Cheers,
Jonathan Lowe.
/
don't bother me with insignificiant nonsence such as spelling,
I don't care if it spelt properly
/
Sometimes I fly and sometimes I just dream about it.
:-)


Barnyard BOb - accepting donations for S&H

Thanks for the info George.I have never talked to anyone about this
before.I got the idea one day and just tried it and it seemed to work
fine for me.Even on a 15 degree day,the oil would almost boil if you
left it in over 10 min. or so.I change my oil every 20 hrs. so I figured
that it would be okay.After your post,I think I will reconsider,Jim

Model Flyer

What do you fly by the way (C/L. FF. RC, etc) ? Raced for a while till
my caller called it a day.

On ether, could happen.

I just assumed that anyone smart enougah to get a license to fly would
be smart enough to not over do a good thing G

Big John


On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 22:21:16 -0000, "Model Flyer"
wrote:


"Big John" wrote in message
.. .
Michael

Lots of suggestions. Here are more.

1. If I had to RON in cold country, paid for a hanger.

2. If parked outside, pulled engine through a dozen or so times.
Then
gave the intake a shot or two of ether and cranked. When ether
fired
engine would start running and you could then warm up normally
prior
to take off.


Friend of mine knew a chap who administered an excess of 'easy
start', (ether), blew the manifold and battery out the side of his
car. Something simmilar may happen with your favorite aircraft if
given too much.