Gas Caps
in General Tech Discussion
10 years ago
Earlier this week, after fllying around the Hawaiian chain of islands over the course of three days in my CTLS ( fantastic views, by the way ) the plastic flip tab on my left wing fuel cap "broke off".
This posed a bit of a problem, as I had to use needle-nose pliers & flat-head screwdriver to rotate the small cylinder and pull it up to try to tighten the seal--but the cap would just not "fully" tighten...and I still had a leg from Honolulu to my Kona, Hawaii hanger remaining, wondering whether or not fuel would be sucked from the tank....lots of ocean out there....
In looking at the construction of the fuel cap I was perplexed that this flip-tab was not designed using metal, rather than plastic, as at least on my caps their can be quite a bit of torque needed to rotate it to remove the cap for refueling. And, plastic seems to become more brittle over time, as I recall.
( btw, these caps are pretty "pricey"--$138 @ + shipping from Germany, although I was informed through Lone Mountain Aviation in Las Vegas / Flight Design USA that Aircraft Spruce offers what appears to be identical ones for $65 @ that I am having shipped and will soon be able to confirm ).
Anyway; has anyone else had trouble with these?
Scott Church
Kona, Hawaii
This posed a bit of a problem, as I had to use needle-nose pliers & flat-head screwdriver to rotate the small cylinder and pull it up to try to tighten the seal--but the cap would just not "fully" tighten...and I still had a leg from Honolulu to my Kona, Hawaii hanger remaining, wondering whether or not fuel would be sucked from the tank....lots of ocean out there....
In looking at the construction of the fuel cap I was perplexed that this flip-tab was not designed using metal, rather than plastic, as at least on my caps their can be quite a bit of torque needed to rotate it to remove the cap for refueling. And, plastic seems to become more brittle over time, as I recall.
( btw, these caps are pretty "pricey"--$138 @ + shipping from Germany, although I was informed through Lone Mountain Aviation in Las Vegas / Flight Design USA that Aircraft Spruce offers what appears to be identical ones for $65 @ that I am having shipped and will soon be able to confirm ).
Anyway; has anyone else had trouble with these?
Scott Church
Kona, Hawaii
