Our plugs on our 600 hour Rotax 912UL are about due for changing.
A bit of a dilemma:
Took a 16-hour LSA repairman/inspector course from an very experienced Rotax A&P mechanic last year.
He said that Rotax recommends coating threads on plug with a heat transfer compound... thermal paste.
It's usually either a grease with aluminum powder or more comonly silver powder.
Was specific that "if that's what Rotax says, that's what I'd use. Nothing else.
Idea is that by perfect thermal contact at the threads the plug will run at expected design/intended temperatures.
(I'm familiar with that sort of compound... In the computer business, which I'm in, we use it on top of a CPU chip {which produce a lot of heat] to make good thermal contact with the heat-sink that cools/disspates the heat.)
Unlike anti-seize you won't find it at NAPA, but since I'm in the computer trade not hard to get (just shop for heat-sink-thermal-compound.
Anyway, the previous owner who had this rotax for the first 400 hours of its live used conventional sparkplug thread anti-seize compound, and the plugs look darn near perfect even at 200+ hours.
So I'm torn between "do what Rotax says" and "if it worked fine before keep doing what works."
Any info or opinions on this one?
Al
A bit of a dilemma:
Took a 16-hour LSA repairman/inspector course from an very experienced Rotax A&P mechanic last year.
He said that Rotax recommends coating threads on plug with a heat transfer compound... thermal paste.
It's usually either a grease with aluminum powder or more comonly silver powder.
Was specific that "if that's what Rotax says, that's what I'd use. Nothing else.
Idea is that by perfect thermal contact at the threads the plug will run at expected design/intended temperatures.
(I'm familiar with that sort of compound... In the computer business, which I'm in, we use it on top of a CPU chip {which produce a lot of heat] to make good thermal contact with the heat-sink that cools/disspates the heat.)
Unlike anti-seize you won't find it at NAPA, but since I'm in the computer trade not hard to get (just shop for heat-sink-thermal-compound.
Anyway, the previous owner who had this rotax for the first 400 hours of its live used conventional sparkplug thread anti-seize compound, and the plugs look darn near perfect even at 200+ hours.
So I'm torn between "do what Rotax says" and "if it worked fine before keep doing what works."
Any info or opinions on this one?
Al
