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Tuesday, September 10, 2013

P-51C Mustang Engine - Fuel lines and Atomizers

I almost missed some really cool details on top of the engine. I found them while trying to figure out where, what I thought was, the last fuel line actually ran. On the top of the engine are 6 fuel atomizers connected with a very thin fuel line that leads back to a splitter connecter, can't think of the actual name for it, but since I'm still in the process of building that it will be mentioned in the next blog.

Each Atomizer was made with a piece of .040: plastic rod and a thin wire that was folded into a "U" shape. I used the side edge of a razor blade to fold the wire. It was then very carefully glued in place on the wire. At this point the wire legs were longer than what you see in the picture below. This made it so much easier to handle while gluing it in place. Once the glue was dry I used fingernail clippers to snip them to the proper length.


As you can see in the picture above, there are three colors on this tiny little thing. The outside of the rod is black, the top face of the rod is gold, and the prongs of the wire are silver. Once the paint tried, I carefully cut the end of the rod off leaving the thinnest sliver behind. Forgive the blurriness of the photo. My camera can't focus on things this small, but for size reference, the atomizer is sitting on a piece of college rule notebook paper.


The atomizers were glued in place on top of the engine.



The fuel lines that connect the atomizers have a neat joggle in them which proved to be quite the pain until I made a jig to bend them on. I used the placement of each atomizer to make this jig out of a popsicle stick. I bend the wire over it and test fit it on the engine, tweaking the jig as necessary.


I used a very thin .007" wire for the fuel line. It bends very easy, but is very finicky. You have to be careful when handling wire this thin cause you can spend 10 minutes bending the perfect joggle then accidentally knock it totally out of shape. The fuel line runs underneath the ignition wires already in place. The two lines are mirror images of each other. The picture below shows the two lines in place on the atomizers.


Only a few more things and the engine will be complete...