Feature

Induction filter no-no

by Darwin Barrie

Do not for any reason attempt to seal the air filter area with RTV or any other dissimilar material. Fuel will get under and cause it to come loose. Also, once the area is contaminated it would be nearly impossible to get it clean enough to insure that material would adhere.

Fellow RVer, Mark "Glider" Chamberlin attempted to seal his K&N air filter with a rubber pad that was RTV'd in place. Shortly after take off the pad got sucked into the throttle body of the FI system. He was unable to make the airport and landed in a construction yard safely but miraculously!!! Only by the Grace of God was this possible. He later riveted the pad in place. There is still a risk that the pad could tear.

My recommendation would be to get a new bottom portion of the box. Clean and sand the inside with very heavy grit paper and clean again. Wrap a new filter in plastic wrap and mark the general location on the box where it will be.

Mix a thick batch of epoxy and flox and make a large bead where the filter will sit. Reposition the filter and bolt everything in place. This will give you perfect seal and you won't have to worry about anything coming loose.

When cured, take everything apart and you can now use your Dremel and a sanding drum to "pretty" everything up. You can also mix some additional flox and make a nice fillet on the previous mix to further clean things up.

This is an area not to mess with. I urge anyone who has used RTV or similar material to carefully evaluate and make necessary changes to prevent a problem.

"If it is predictable, it is preventable."

 

[from Randy Lervold]

I agree with Darwin about NOT using RTV to seal your airbox, but I wonder why folks don't just have the direction of the mixture arm switched and eliminate having to gouge the airbox anyway? I have Silver Hawk EX on my IO-320 and had them do the reverse mixture arm mod and now it is oriented up missing contact with the FAB body completely... (see photo)
 

 

 

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