December 1 , 2007 HOME

   

Here goes my first hole in the firewall.  Everyone told me it would be difficult to drill through the stainless steel.  The only thing I found different was that the drills were dulled very quickly.

A few holes, a few bolts, nuts and washers and the brake fluid reservoir was installed per plans.

I listened to recommendations, searched the net and read what folks had to say in the groups.  It seems that the common wisdom with regard to gascolators is, "If you have fuel injection (and the big filter), you don't need one."  I thought about this to the conclusion that the one big difference that doesn't get addressed by filters is water.  The gascolator traps water.  It lets you know if water is in the system.  Small amounts of water get into the tanks and, normally, the water that is there passes through the engine unnoticed.  Larger amounts cause some temporary roughness, but get consumed.  There must be a fairly large amount of water to create an engine failure that can't be restarted.  That much water would normally be found when you sump the tanks.

So, what's the value of a gascolator with regard to water?  It lets you know there is a problem.  The problem is water causes corrosion.  Small amounts of water passing through the system can cause rust in the engine driven pump and, on some system, in the fuel flow divider.  The filters and fuel lined themselves can develop corrosion.  All this potential corrosion and rust particulate matter can find its way to the fuel injectors, causing serious engine life threatening events.  I don't want any of those, so I'm going with the more cautious approach.

I am installing an Andiar gascolator, per plans.  The back side of the gascolator has a large tapped hole so that it can be mounted on a single stud.

 

 

I decided to install the gascolator using the 2 tapped holes at the top.  Here you can see that the fuel flow is directional according to the prominent in and out markings.

gascolator

There really wasn't any guidance on how to mount the gascolator to the firewall, so I decided to make my own bracket from a scrap piece of angle. 

I drilled it to match the holes in the gascolator with some surprise that I got it right on the first try.  I drilled another 9 holes for rivets to attach the bracket to the firewall.  I know I will have to add a doubler (backing plate) to the firewall to make it a secure installation.

The 4 rivets around the bracket attach the doubler on the inside of the firewall.  Here's the gascolator bracket, match drilled and clecoed to the firewall.

 

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