Old Taff's uniflow tank: which is pickup tube?

[Joe Ed Pederson]

I have an old (unused) Taff's (Carolina - Taffinder) 4 oz oval profile tank from the 70's (I think).  It has one tube going straight down from the bottom of the tank, one tube on the front face, 3/4 inch outboard from fuselage, near the top of the face and angled down and toward the rear outboard corner of the tank.  The third tube is on the front face, 3/4 inch outboard from fuselage, near the bottom of the face of the tank, angled up and toward the rear outboard corner of the tank.

I'm assuming the tube going straight down is the overflow tube.  Which of the other two tubes is the pickup and which is the uniflow tube? 


Thanks,

Joe Ed Pederson

[Tim Wescott]

I don't know.  But if you put a teeny bit of fuel into a uniflow tank and hold it with the outside back corner down then you should be able to pull that fuel out of the pickup tube, but not the uniflow vent.  If you put some more fuel in you should be able to pick it up with both the vent and the pickup tube.  If you hold the tank upside down and tilted down toward the front, you should be able to draw fuel out of the fill vent, but not from the uniflow vent or the pickup tube.

So with a bit of time spent with a syringe and some fuel, you can find out.  And if it goes in clear and comes out brown, you'll learn something about what's inside the tank!

[Joe Ed Pederson]

Thanks, Tim.

The Fuel tank is still in the original plastic package, but that's no guarantee against rust.

The price sticker is still on the package: $5.30.  The tank was originally going to go on a Top Flite Tutor kit I bought at the hobby shop in Lincoln, Nebraska.  The Tutor box still has the $24.95 price sticker on it. 

Right now I plan on putting the Taff tank on a Francherized Twister Doc Holiday gave me.

Again, Thanks.

Joe Ed

[Dan McEntee]

  Is there any paper work in the bag? If so there may be a diagram of the tubes and what each is. Taff tanks were good tanks, well built and may be quite OK. If no paper work, email me a photo if you can. I'm thinking that the inboard tube is fill, and outboard is uniflow. If the inboard is fill, plug the overflow tube and fill it through the pick up tube. If it is the fill tube, the tank will take a lot of fuel until it reaches the fill tube and it acts like the over flow.. If you do this the other way around, it will not take as much fuel before it comes out the other tube, like by half the amount. But I think that if the tank is new in package, it should have some sort of diagram, maybe on the inside of the header card/label.
   Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

[Joe Ed Pederson]

Dan,

No unfortunately there were no pictures/diagrams in the package or on the back of the label.  The staples have never been undone, so I didn't open it and lose anything.  But I should be able to determine which tube is which using the tests which you and Tim suggested.


I just attempted to send you a couple of pictures of the tank from my Ipad to your email address.  The first email has no text to it.  The second does.


Thanks,

Joe Ed

[bill bischoff]

front top = uniflow
front bottom = pickup
straight down = overflow

[Joe Ed Pederson]

Thanks, Bill.

Joe Ed