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Subject: RE: [FlyRotary] Re: Bad day at the airport
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 08:39:37 -0600
Message-ID: <87DBA06C9A5CB84B80439BA09D86E69EC07F0E@MAIL01.austin.utexas.edu>
Thread-Topic: [FlyRotary] Re: Bad day at the airport
Thread-Index: AcUN6PywsxtpTIVCS36h4u3Vtpw99QAAMeJA
From: "Mark R Steitle" <mark.steitle@austin.utexas.edu>
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>

Paul,
Do you have a bleed circuit between your pump and fuel pressure
regulator? Do you have heat shields on your fuel lines? My guess is that
you may have experienced vapor lock.  Without a bleed circuit, the fuel
pump can't produce enough pressure to overcome the fuel pressure
regulator.  I discovered this in my fuel system, as did some builders on
the Eggenfelner group.  They actually had a couple of forced landings
attributed to vapor lock.  I could reproduce this condition by letting
my fuel pump suck air for a couple of seconds, then reinsert the pickup
back into the tank.  This was to simulate running a tank dry, and then
switching to the other tank.  With air in the lines, the pump couldn't
overcome the back pressure from the regulator.  Only way to get it to
run again was to crack the line to the injectors (with pump running)
until the pump re-primed.  The bleed circuit allows this.  It has a
.020" orifice, so it doesn't pass an excessive amount of fuel, but it
will pass quite a bit of air.  Now, if I pull the pickup out of the tank
and reinsert it, the pump will reprime in a few seconds.  In your case,
I suspect that once you landed, there was enough time for engine/fuel
system to cool enough to allow a restart.  Just a guess. =20

Mark S. =20
(Glad you weren't hurt, or the a/c either)   =20

-----Original Message-----
From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On
Behalf Of Ernest Christley
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 8:16 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Bad day at the airport

Paul wrote:

>     =20
>     Thanks, Bill....My next step is to pull the cowling and check
>     plugs, filters, etc.  I will inspect the plugs to see what
>     condition they are in. That can tell me a lot. I wish I hadn't
>     re-started the engine to taxi back to the hangar. Running the
>     engine after the problem might have covered up the problem, as it
>     seemed to be running better on the taxi trip back to the hangar.=20
>     I'll report back with my findings.  Take care, and many thanks to
>     everyone for their input and suggestions.  Paul, I'd rather be
>     flying, Conner
>     =20
>
Paul, I got excited just reading your account.  Glad you and your plane=20
are still in one piece.

Just to add to Bill's suggestion, the first car I owned was...let's say,

'previously owned'.    Occasionaly, when you tried to get on the gas to=20
hard, it would die.  Always cranked right back up.  The problem went=20
away when I rebuilt the carb to clean out all the trash that would get=20
sucked up and block the jets (only when you really needed it not to).

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