Titanium bolts anyone interested?

[Ed Wright]

Yeah, I know what the coating is. I was an aircraft tech for 12 years. Used those bolts all the time at work. Not just everybody can machine them well. I measured every bolt in the car while building it, it came completely apart every winter. My friend took the bastard-sized bolts and made the needed 1/2" & 7/16" bolts, with one full thread past the locking nuts. Intake bolts, bell housing, and front motor plate bolts were std thread 3/8", (no std threads on an air plane) were made from longer 3/8" fine thread bolts. Always use the proper anti-seize with them. Got asked a lot "Why all the 12 point bolts?" :-)

I had blue & red AN fittings and stainless braided lines (and Dzus fasteners) on my old '56 Chevy Jr Stocker in the mid-1960s before anybody ever heard of Dave Russell.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Yeah, I know what the coating is. I was an aircraft tech for 12 years. Used those bolts all the time at work. Not just everybody can machine them well. I measured every bolt in the car while building it, it came completely apart every winter. My friend took the bastard-sized bolts and made the needed 1/2" & 7/16" bolts, with one full thread past the locking nuts. Intake bolts, bell housing, and front motor plate bolts were std thread 3/8", (no std threads on an air plane) were made from longer 3/8" fine thread bolts. Always use the proper anti-seize with them. Got asked a lot "Why all the 12 point bolts?" :-)

I had blue & red AN fittings and stainless braided lines (and Dzus fasteners) on my old '56 Chevy Jr Stocker in the mid-1960s before anybody ever heard of Dave Russell.

LOL! Same here too! My buddies always wanted to know how I had all these cool fasteners, plumbing and wiring. We had lots of surplus stuff at the A&P School and grabbed what I needed for the race car. Also had access to AV Gas which I mixed with regular gas for both the race car and street car.

[Ed Wright]

When they had to service a wing fuel cell, they "de-fueled" the cell into a tank on a trailer they towed out to the flight line. Then into a storage tank, where it was later disposed of. I have no idea how. :-) the cell would be refilled with fresh fuel after the repair. The cargo planes we had used purple fuel, seems like 114 octane? It was color coded then. We often used fuel from that tank in our cars. Exhaust from a car burning that had it's own aroma. LOL Not hard to tell where some guys got their fuel, in the parking lot at the end of the day.
We thought it was cheap race fuel. We didn't at the time understand that fuel for a 2800 RPM engine was different than fuel for a 8500 RPM (high RPM for the mid-1960s) engine. I was working on 4360 Pratt & Whitney radial engines then.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

When they had to service a wing fuel cell, they "de-fueled" the cell into a tank on a trailer they towed out to the flight line. Then into a storage tank, where it was later disposed of. I have no idea how. :-) the cell would be refilled with fresh fuel after the repair. The cargo planes we had used purple fuel, seems like 114 octane? It was color coded then. We often used fuel from that tank in our cars. Exhaust from a car burning that had it's own aroma. LOL Not hard to tell where some guys got their fuel, in the parking lot at the end of the day.
We thought it was cheap race fuel. We didn't at the time understand that fuel for a 2800 RPM engine was different than fuel for a 8500 RPM (high RPM for the mid-1960s) engine. I was working on 4360 Pratt & Whitney radial engines then.

The main difference between AV GAS and automotive gasoline is the vapor pressure. The vapor pressure on AVGAS is much lower to prevent vapor lock and stalling. I mixed 30% AVGAS with 94 octane gasoline and rejetted the carb.

WOW! LOL!
Ed, I did not know you were that old to be working on WASP engines! :-)

Those babies were something else! I believe they had 28 cylinders and made from 2500 hp to 3800 hp depending on the model. We had a few of those at school for training purposes.

[Ed Wright]

I was working at the Oklahoma Air National Guard base at the Tulsa airport. I had to belong to the Guard, but it was a state civil service job. The planes were about my age, 1941 throu 1943. C97, then C124 cargo planes. We had one a week flying supplies into Vietnam. Both planes had the same 4360 P&W engines. The Air Force had turbo prop cargo planes then, but the C124 could hold more bulk. Like fire truck, or 2 Forward Air Controller planes with the wings removed and tied to the fuselage. One facing each way.