Cleaning a Glo Tank

[Den Moran]

Hi, everyone! I have an old Aeromaster Biplane, and am prepping it for flying. The glo fuel tank is in situ , and cannot be removed without major surgery.

I can get access through the vent/fuel line pipe plug, but would like to have  some suggestions on what to use to make sure there is no gunk or dirt in the tank.?

Thank you, Den, Cymru.

[Jon H]

I would do the surgery and get the tank out. You have no idea if a pipe has broken, the clunk has fallen off or the tank is just full of gunge. It will be a lot less work to sort the tank now than repair the model later. 

[J D 8]

Hi Den, Just put some plain methanol or if not available fresh glow fuel. Slosh it about and leave for a day. Do again if needed.  After do a pressure test.  Hwyl John.

Edited September 6, 2022 by J D 8

[extra slim]

I have to concur with Jon, in recently acquiring a model from a retired friend. Wanted to run the engine up to check it before the rest of my minor refurb and checks. Needless to say, I managed to fill the fus with fuel as the pressure feed had come off!!.. Odd for me, as I usually strip everything down and make sure it is right before I start.

[Andy Stephenson]

If the pipes in the tank are brass and nitro fuel has been used they could be corroded through inside the tank. I recently had trouble when the engine would quit shortly after starting. The tank was removed on the field and investigated. It turned out the trouble was the feed pipe from the clunk had rotted through right at the bung and was letting air in. This never would have been discovered without pulling the whole thing apart.

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

Tor a start the 'bung' will be loose so if you don't want to fill your plane with methanol the only way to go is change the fuel tank.

[Engine Doctor]

I would bet a pound to a penny that the brass fuel tubes are rotten and need replacing shown up by any green stained oil or muck in the tank ,so do the surgery. Better to do that than re-furish the model and loose the lot when it cuts unexpectedly ! Fit a new bung having checked the tank for splits especially on the mould line around the opening, a common failure spot. Replace brass tubing with aluminium tubing as the brass tubing supplied these days contains far less copper than the old stuff and it's the copper that has been disdolved by nitromethane in the fuel leaving a  bittle porous zinc tube with little strength and hence  the failure . Throw away the clunk and fit a sintered metal clunk available from Ripmax for around £3 . These filters are made of bronze and filter all debris from the fuel and unlike inline filters won't allow air leaks into the fuel line .Also fit one to your filling pump so fuel is filtered twice before it gets to your engine. Good luck and hope its not too difficult.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Engine Doctor

[Brian Cooper]

Do the surgery and fit a new tank. . . It will be less stress in the long run. 

[Jon H]

Looks like plenty of votes to operate. 

 

I would consider this surgery a double whammy. One, you are going to make sure the tank is ok, but you are also upgrading the model to make the tank easy to access in future. Maintenance is key for long term reliability and you can guarantee that something buried will break eventually and need to be fixed. I made this mistake myself with some retracts and regretted it after the very first flight. Never again!

[Andy Stephenson]

I remember a newby lad was invited from another club to fly with us one afternoon but he had nothing but trouble with getting the engine to run on his trainer. We suggested it must be a tank problem so asked him to take it out so we could have a look. He said it was foamed in, "OK so remove the foam". He couldn't do that as he'd be advised to use builder's foam at least that's what he thought they meant. There was nothing to be done on the field as it would have taken a hacksaw to remove the tank and a major rebuild to put it all back together again. The moral of this story is that anything that can breakdown should be treated as a maintainable item and therefore accessible.

[Brian Cooper]

It never ceases to amaze me how some people prepare their aeroplanes. 😱

 

Put it this way, chaps, would you weld the wheels to your car, or do you think it might be a good idea to be able to remove them sometimes to replace the tyres, brakes, etc. 

[Engine Doctor]

I was asked to check a model years ago for an elderly member of our club. He said the serrvos were slow. I checked it over and they were as slow as a slow thing ! I said when rid you charge the battery?  He told me they were on all the previous night. Next question was how old is the battery, he replied "as old as the model"  as he had built the battery in . So battery , a nicad was about 15 years old! 

Why do people build these servicable items into the model ?

Edited September 6, 2022 by Engine Doctor

[Jon H]

29 minutes ago, Engine Doctor said:

 a nicad was about 15 years old! 

Why do people build these servicable items into the model ?

 

And why was it not checked on a cycler to see how its capacity was doing?

 

I know of many models lost due to the charge over night, fly, charge over night routine. Especially in the nicad days where they developed a memory you could end up with a battery of about 80mah capacity. That might get you though the 3 flights you normally have, but go for a 4th and it was all over.

 

I give my nimh batterys an annual charge, wait 2 days, discharge/recharge cycle and check the capacity. The battery in my FF( tx is on its last legs as its a 2600 and i only get about 1700 out of it now. As my tx has a voltage alarm its still in there, but if i found an rx battery like that it would be reduced to non critical use like powering electric retracts or use on the bench setting models up.   

 

The only problem with doing maintenance is you always find new jobs and this turns quick and simple fixes into major repairs. The advantage however is a reliable model that is far less likely to become a lawn dart. This is important for obvious reasons, but should your model be involved in an accident where the law gets involved its maintenance history will be of interest to the prosecution. I know that is a bit dramatic, but it is a reality. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Jon - Laser Engines

[Nigel R]

one more vote for doing the surgery and removing the tank 

 

In the long run, the right fix is always the quickest fix

 

Even if it doesn't seem so at first

Edited September 6, 2022 by Nigel R

[Den Moran]

Hi, everyone, and many thanks for the advice. The aircraft is old, so I decided to go with everyones' advice and remove the tank for cleaning with methanol  ( I have alcohol), and crikey, what a shock when I could see into the tank! Absolutely filthy! I've decided to replace the fuel system completely with a new tank and feed lines.

    Another problem that seems to be inherent is that the fuel intake nipple on the casing 'throws' the fuel pipe forward towards the prop, and makes the plastic fuel pipe bend sharply in an umbrella handle shape to be able to go aft to the tank. Has anyone reversed the carburettor so that the nipple is facing rearwards? I realise that I will have to shift the control rod to the other side, but as I'm replacing the tank, it shouldn't be a problem. Thanks once again, diolch yn fawr, Den.

[David Davis]

Which engine is it Den?

[J D 8]

It is normal to have the throttle arm on the off side and needle/feed pipe on the near side, is this the way yous is ?  With some engines it is possible to rotate the fuel nipple position.  John.

[Engine Doctor]

13 hours ago, Jon - Laser Engines said:

 

And why was it not checked on a cycler to see how its capacity was doing?

 

 

John in my post I did say the person was elderly and this was well over twenty years ago , possibly nearer thirty years .To him a cycler was new fangled tech and were new to a lot of us. We were all just cycling the Nicads manually to counter the so called memory effect.  The point I was making was that the battery was built into the model in a manner that to remove it meant serious surgery or near destruction of the airframe. 

I've seen an engine built into an airframe and the only way to remove it was to chop off the cowling !

Yes some people who should know better dont think ahead and I don't think that will ever change . Forums like this help educate new builders not to make these blunders.

Even our highly educated politicians often don't think through the consequences of their actions but that's for another forum !

[Rich Griff]

Hi den, gog?

 

I had to remove a tank and plumbing from an autogyro that had been "foamed" in. Yes a quick fix during assembly but boy a real pita, foam over the engine mount screws and locknuts...a real fight in the end.

 

The shadow had been in storage for years and the tank was removed. Very green in the tank. The brass clunk was well eaten with the clunks fuel pipe stub eaten half thru.

 

Both models have new tanks and plumbing etc.. Easy to remove and service/check etc..

 

Time well spent

[Den Moran]

The site is not showing my replies to individuals, sorry. Many thanks, all sorted now, Den, Cymru.