Breeze clamps?

[Buckaroo]

My friend just flew in from Texas in his Rans S-19 he built. He's a Rotax guru who I'm trying to talk into doing my hose job for a cool $3000 while on his vacation. We'll see how this ends up!?

Anyway he says Breeze clamps are the way to go on all the h2o lines and all the fittings for that matter. 

What do you all think?

 

 

[Ed Cesnalis]

The big incompatibility on the hoses is between the rubber fuel lines and the barbed fittings.  Many will say the problem comes with the clamping but the truth is that rubber fuel lines and barbed fittings are not compatible and the barbs can cause rubber debris when the hose is installed that will pollute the fuel system.

Tight fitting hose forced over the barbs will shave off a layer of hose on the inside that can end up in your carbs. Minimize the damage by not using hose that is a tight fit and has to be forced over the barbs and inspect your float bowls more than once after the change looking for rubber debris.

Not sure if a clamp change does anything but a fitting change from barbed fittings would produce a nice safety improvement.

 

[Buckaroo]

Ed thanks for the informative information! So what clamps do you recommend? What do you think of breeze clamps?

[Anticept]

They should have used beaded fittings. I think Flight Design is the first aircraft that I've seen use barbed fittings... everything else is either beaded for flexible, or flared rigid with a B-nut (AN818) and T sleeve (AN819).

[Buckaroo]

Roger can you take time to photo a pic of the appropriate clamps for fuel, water and oil so I can understand what they should be? This clamp controversy should be easy and straight forward. My head is starting to burst over something easy that's turned into nerd conversation! 

My so called Rotax guru is a nice guy but I prefer to evaluate this on my own. 

Tomorrow we are flying side by side in my CTSW and his Rans S-19. Should be fun! 

[Anticept]

Not all hose clamps are equal, roger. It's like saying you can just go to the hardware store and buy perfectly good bolts and use on a plane. Definitely NOT true, not by a looooong shot.

That said, some of the breeze clamps are made to milspec (not all, only a small subset). Not saying this automatically makes them good for use on rotax, but it does make them *consistent* and you know exactly what they are made of. That's worth a lot more what you get from the chinesium you find in the corner store. There's a few videos on youtube where people talk about how a higher quality hose clamp works a lot better than the hardware store stuff they tried.

Breeze do make some belleville style hose clamps that are rather intriguing.

The single biggest problem with worm drive clamps is that they draw the hose in one direction. Funny thing is, you can actually cause a leak by making them too tight. A second clamp going the opposite direction and tightening them together can help with this.

Spring clamps are used in many areas on the cooling system near the engine, because they tend to apply almost uniform clamping force around the circumference of the hose. If I recall, rotax tried many different clamps and found that they work the best.

I love fuel injector clamps, but it would be an immense pain stocking all the sizes you would need.

[FlyingMonkey]

I just did a hose change.  I used the spring clamps where Rotax uses them (you have to make sure they are up against the fitting bead), the fuel injection clamps where they were on the oil lines and Oetikers on all fuel hoses and some of the oil hoses.  Pretty much what Roger recommends.  I have had zero leaks, now at about ten hours of flight time post-change.  

Just another data point.

[Tom Baker]

I pretty much do the same as Roger said, except I use a Oetiker on the oil line as well. I do this so I can extend the fire sleeve all the way to the end of the hose for a nice clean installation. If you reuse the fuel injection clamps on the oil lines you need to be careful when doing the Band-it clamp. In my first round of hose changes I saw an oil line where the Band-it clamp had been tightened to much and it was off the fitting. It reduced the hose diameter significantly.

[Buckaroo]

The one's the guy was recommending were Breeze hose liner clamps.

http://shop.azsupply.com/storefront/liner-12-wide-worm-drive-hose-clamps-for-soft-hose-c-301?gclid=CMfdxIPL6NQCFd21wAod4ykCiQ

[Tom Baker]

Roger, my point on the Band-it clamps is that they need to be over something solid when they are tightened down. If you use the fuel injection clamps on the oil lines it is real easy for the Band-it to be over just hose when it is tightened. With the Oetiker clamp I am able to place the Band-it on the fitting side of the Oetiker with no chance of it squeezing off the fitting.