ORIGINAL: shd3920
ORIGINAL: slickscustoms
he guys whats up! im trying to get back into flying after 15 years off. i have a k&b .40 in my trainer that i'm trying to get running. sometimes it will crank and sometimes it wont. if it does crank it will be right before the battery in my glow plug igniter dies. when it is running it is running so rich that it will foul the plug. ive taken the carb and head off and cleaned both and adjusted the needle where it should be but its still acting stupid! any other suggestions?? thanks!!
That is why I am switching my planes to electric. I have two engines that started fine for me in the beginning, then both suddenly wouldn't start, exactly as yours is acting. Too coincidental to be glow plugs. I am thinking it was the fuel. I looked at the fuel can and saw it stated 'helicopter'. My LHS just wanted to make the $$$ I guess so he said it was fine. Glow is just too tricky to figure out, took a whole summer away from me learning the flying basics, aside from the fact that I don't know engines and prob wouldn't figure out the correct idle. Like I said, easier to convert my planes to electric.
This isn't true, IMHO. With glow engines you just have to learn to operate them properly. However, this is exactly the same for anything you use, including electric planes. There is no "perfect" solution in this hobby. There are positives and negatives with any equipment you use. Same goes for electric. But to simply lable glow engines as bad because of an issue like this is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. As you are finding out in your thread on converting to electric power, there are just as many things you have to take into consideration and learn with electric power. So like I said, there are no perfect solutions.
Also, there is nothing wrong with using "heli" fuel in your engine. It's usually a higher nitro content so you'll have to run the engine a bit richer to keep it cool.
Ken