The Peach Can Vapor Lock Reduction Device (PCVLRD) seems to have solved about 90 to 95% of the vapor lock(VL) during normal travel. We only have had to resort to switching the fuel tank valve maybe twice since installing it. (Read the A Day You Remember blog for background.)
The only hint now of a VL can be felt when crawling along in low range looking for a campsite at the end of the day, almost stalling, needing to rev and clear the impending VL. Revision 2 was needed!
A comment left by Erick Filippone got me thinking about rerouting the fuel lines to remove the heat. Unfortunately, the carburetor sits on the intake manifold which shares the Siamese ports with the exhaust header…..so no easy way to get away from the heat
Enter the Land Rover PTO and my epiphany! If I couldn’t bring the fuel line to cool air, I would bring cool air to the fuel line!
The Land Rover was originally designed to be a tractor you could drive to town. The transmission and frame even has provisions for a front or rear PTO (power take off) to drive various farm implements (saw mill, bailer, etc…). The frame has a 4 inch hole on the front and rear for the PTO.
My idea was to use a 4 inch dryer vent hose plumed into the PTO frame hole on the front of the Rover. I would pop a small hole in the vent hose where it passed by the engine mounted fuel pump on its path to the carburetor. I removed the fuel line from between the carb and pump….dropped it into the vent hose…fishing out the end to the pump and reattached to the pump and carburetor.
I now have a Ram Air cooled VL reduction hose that cools the fuel line between the fuel pump and the carburetor bathing it in cool air from outside the engine compartment!
I then thought, well that’s fine while we are moving down the road. What about when we are plodding along a fire road looking for a site. It was time for the internet! Enter the Bilge Blower! A 12 volt, 4 inch diameter, blower whose function is to clear gasoline vapors from a boat’s engine compartment prior to starting the engine. And its was only $20!! I spliced into the dryer vent hose by the PTO opening and viola, with a simple flick of a switch on the dashboard lots of cool air blowing in, I hope!
It’s a little cobbled up as a proof of concept, but the dryer hose is only $8 and if it works I will clean it up for a final version (or not!)
Brilliant! Looks good to me. That should do it.
So awesome!
I’m impressed! Again!