"I have no special knowledge about the actual oil content of Morgan fuels. I have not done a boil-down test like Bill references."
Hi Dave,
Don't know if you read a much earlier post of mine, where I mentioned the reason for the tests?
At that time I was club secretary, and news letter editor, as well as part time instructor pilot at our R/C club. After having too many new flyers show up at the field with plain bearing iron piston engines (like K&B Sportsters), and Morgan Cool Power or Omega fuel for R/C flying lessons, I decided to spread the word about the fuel problem that was frying many of their engines on the maiden flight. If new flyers showed up when I was training I had an easy solution, I provided free fuel for them to use until they could get their own.
So I ran a series of tests by begging for samples of various fuel in the news letter, and catching anyone I could at the field opening a new container of fuel that I did not already have. The fuel I was able to test samples of was Omega, Fox, SIG, Byrons, Red Max, and several other popular fuels available at that time (almost twenty years ago).
I had quite a variety of fuels offered for testing, and all of them except Morgan had the ingredients marked on the container labels.
Test was run by measuring the same sample size (10cc as I recall) with a graduated syringe, and injecting those into three separate cups in the muffin tin. Four types of fuel could be sampled per tin, and I marked each row of three with a pen, so I would knew which fuel they contained. The pan was set on a shelf in my well ventilated garage, but covered by the shelves above to minimize any fallout . No one parked in the garage, and there were no sources of spark or flame to worry about.
I found that the volatile components evaporated in three or four days in warm weather, so the residual could be collected by tilting the pan up on one end for another day or so, and then sucking the remaining oil back into the syringe from the corner of the cups. Of the dozen or more fuels I tested, I found that every fuel marked with the ingredients on the jug was exactly as indicated, but the Morgan fuel (Omega) measured just under 13 percent oil.
Not a scientific test by any means, but every sample measured spot on except the Morgan fuel! I even made sure that all three samples of Morgan fuel measured exactly the same, and they did.
The test results were published in our news letter, and I got nothing but praise from club members at the next meeting. Our club membership was about a hundred members at that time, and our meeting attendance was so good that we often filled the grade school classroom where we held our meetings.
Anyway, my newsletter archives were lost many computer failures back, and I've yet to find the backup so I'm going by memory here.
Now I'm embarrassed to say that my local hobby shop stocks nothing but Morgan fuel (in gallons), and a few small cans of the new Cox half-A fuel (that they finally got right after many complaints from us Cox fans). They also don't stock glow or diesel engines, and haven't had a new half-A prop on the shelf in many years!
Stopped in a few days ago to get a new gel cell for my flight box, and the shelf was bare. The clerk told me they can't get them anymore since Tower and Great Plains went under. Checked Amazon and found dozens of 12 volt gel cells, and many of them for under $20, so the home and business alarm systems saved our bacon.
Bill