Armor All ideas....

We have been using Armor All in all our fuel for over 10 years. All brands. I always hear of putting foam, etc., behind the tanks on profiles to kill foaming. This practice is only so effective, as we all know even if we do not admit it.
However, a tiny squirt of Armor All in a gallon of fuel immediately kills all foaming! Forever and ever, Amen!

What is the downside of the use of Armor All ??????

C'mon experts and non...... what about it??

Thanks
Bill <><

Very interesting, I have never heard about doing that....

Heard about it from someone (can't remember, maybe Tom Dixon or Randy Smith) many years ago. It works. The engines have seen no ill effects, nor the performance of the fuel. Plus I always add Randy's "snake oil" to all my fuel, too.
Bill <><

Bill,

One of the problems I have heard about but never experienced because I don't use the stuff in my fuel is that it can cause silicon deposits to grow on glowplugs and cause burnouts.

Jim Pollock Whew! What a sentence, ugh!

Hi Jim,
Never experienced that phenomena. It is amazing just how little an amount does the job. Shake the jug as hard as you can, and when you stop, there is absolutely no foam. I do change a glow plug about once a decade! Sometimes whether it needs it or not! LOL!!

Best thing is that I never get a funny run from foaming, even when I broke the tip of a prop once.

Bill <><

I used to add armor all, but discontinued the practice. I have not had issues with anything I could attrubute to fuel foaming, even on Fox powered stuff with max vibration. I did see glo plug failures about every 100 flights or so with armor all added, and have not had any plugs fail since I stopped using it. It is impressive to add a drop to a freshly mixed gallon of fuel and watch the foam instantly vanish, but with no foaming issues in flight I just don't need to use it.

I don't like to add water to my fuel (one of the major components in Armor-all) but one or two drops won't hurt. At one point we had gotten some anti-foamer from Red Max (back when they were still using good castor and we were using their fuel). They had forgotten to add defoamer to their fuel so sent me a little one ounce bottle. Add one drop and "poof", foam gone. Theirs is a silicone based material. I had tried to buy it for resale and they wanted $10 an ounce...in quantity! I decided that wasn't going to fly. I tried some other stuff and for a while was selling some silicone stuff that I had purchased in quantity wholesale and was repackaging at less than the retail per ounce price in quantity. But I later found it didn't work with Ucon oil. I don't know why. It worked fine with Castor and Klotz. One person who had gotten it from me said it didn't work for him. So we got some ucon fuel and found it didn't work for us, either. So I quit selling the stuff. The Red Max ten dollars an ounce stuff didn't work in Ucon either, by the way. But Armor-All did.

Armor-All has silicone in it. One of the anti-foamer agents. It also has fish-eye killer in it. The other ingredient that works. Maybe if I had mixed the two, I could have come up with my own concoction again. But I didn't.

OK, now that we got this far, we went back to Armor-All. The original stuff. Don't get the stuff for the leather or the dash or the tires. Get the original stuff. Son-Of-A-Gun is a similar product. The original stuff. Just be aware that not everything that is packaged under their brands will work because the ingredients are different.

Now, back to my original statements at the top: Use only one or two drops to a gallon. I said drops, not squirts, teaspoons, tablespoons, bottles... It is surprising how many people follow the axiom that if a little works a little more must be better. Not so. that's why when the doctors prescribe pills, they tell you how many and how often. Same with this stuff. One or two drops per gallon.

Shake the jug. If it foams up and does not immediately go away, put in a drop. Shake again. If that didn't do it, put in another drop. That should do you. And, yes, the silicone can eat plugs. But if you keep it in this small of a quantity you should be all right. Use just enough for the purpose. That's why the doctor tells you to "take two aspirins and go to bed." He doesn't say "empty the bottle."

Len gave out some real good advice in preceding. Shooting "a squirt or two" of Armor-All into a gallon of fuel is not such a good idea for the reasons mentioned. And is not needed to begin with.

I used to use a couple drops of Armor-All in all my fuel, but quit doing so. I do carry a small container of the stuff in my Giant Tool Box, although the primary use is in spiffing up a MonoKote-covered model right before appearance judging. But if fuel foaming appears to be a problem--and it rarely is with well-built models--it is available for anti-foaming use.

There has been mention of potential plug problems. Although I have only anecdotal evidence to offer, I am of a mind that *something* in the Armor-All, probably the silicone Len mentions, does lead to booger build-up (technical term) on the element itself.

Plugs affected in this way do not "fail" in the classic sense, but they do quit working well. This would not be a problem of consequence were it not for the plug very slowly going bad over a period of several practice sessions versus one or two flights. About the time one decides the problem might be the plug a whole bunch of other variables have been changed in order to compensate.

Again, I am offering no proof of this being a problem. But since discontinuing use of Armor-All in my fuel, I am pretty sure plug-related issues have decreased substantially.

Dan

"One of Janet Jackson's body parts popped out last weekend, saw its shadow and retreated. Bummer. Six more weeks of winter." Dennis Miller, CNBC.

Hello there

I have Armor All to cure foaming only when it is a problem. though not often. If it burns plugs then that is better than a crook engine run.

I use good hardwood for the engine bearers, balance props, balance the spinner back plate then the spinner to the back plate. Then usually I do not have foaming probs.

I solder a 1/16 piec of copper wire across the large flat surface of then tank to stop vibration of the flat surface.

John Quigley

So Leonard...the clear thick defoamer I bought from you a few years ago doesn't work...or does it? I use a castor/synthetic blend fuel.

I remember asking the late George Aldrich about the silicone in Armorall and the potential for damage in glowplugs. His statement was that it was a different type of silicone, other than what was in Armorall, that adversly effected plugs. Who should I believe here? ...a guy that forgot more about model engines than most of us will ever know or you?

I know of a chemical supply house that sells an Amorall-like product. I used to make it for them when I worked there. It's really simple...two silicone based indgredients and a LOT of water. I'm going to try to get the silicone based ingredients themselves and see how it does.

Eugene S. Chernosky
AMA 639635

>Bill,
>
>One of the problems I have heard about but never experienced
>because I don't use the stuff in my fuel is that it can
>cause silicon deposits to grow on glowplugs and cause
>burnouts.
>
>Jim Pollock Whew! What a sentence, ugh!

Heard of this but, but my experience with glow plug taters seemed to be a result of bad castor, you know the type that looks like little white specks floating in your fuel. I have encountered this with several of the leading brands. I wont mention any names.

John S.

Yup, I used it and was impressed. Shortly after read the Article about it killing the glow plug.

Don't use it anymore, I just build stronger noses. I actually thought fuel foaming was the cause of some engine problems, it wasn't...

ArmorAll has been used in Australia for well over 20 years and there have never been any stories circulating about plugs going bad or any other problems either. I've always added it to 5 litre cans by spraying a quick squirt across the opening so that only a part of the mist falls into the can. Granted that it's mainly water but at a guess you're adding about 1ppm to the fuel and I'd suspect that far more water gets into the fuel by the end of the flight from the muffler pressure. However I believe the latest formulation for ArmorAll no longer uses silicon so it won't work as an anti-foamer.

Yes, Armor has water in it; however, Prestone Silicone spray does not. I use the Prestone Silicone in my fuel, stops the foaming with no ill effects. Just a quick squirt or two is all it takes.

Ron B.
F4Fguy

I don't use it for the reasons mentioned above,although the plug thing is new to me.If fuel foaming is a problem I use heavy alcohol,C8 or C10.I talked one of our chem lab techies out of about 100cc of C10 about 20 years ago,and I've still got most of it.It is a very powerful surfactant,typically .001% (yes the decimal is in the right place)is plenty.You should be able to get at a chemical supply house.
On the other hand it's more effective to locate the source of the vibration and eliminate it.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-07-04 AT 01:01 AM (CDT)
 
I have been using Original formula Armor-All in my fuels for years and have never seen it affect plug life. In certain helicopter models, its almost impossible to keep vibration out the fuel tank due to its location and mounting. One of the only ways I could get the heli to run long enough to isolate and work on the problem was to start using Armor-All. I use a half-a-squirt per gallon. A few drops I've found... is near useless. I've also found that its properties evaporate if you don't use the gallon of fuel promptly so I started using a stunted squirt when I mix up a new gallon.

What little searching I've found, the Original Armor all was invented in the 50's or 60's before silicone was a household name much less available for stuff like this. I've seen pictures of plugs that have been damaged by silicone and I have yet to see it an ANY of my plugs. In fact, most of my peers routinely change plugs every 20 flights or so yet I've never seen the need. My plugs seem to last much, much longer than that. And I'm using fairly hot ones like OS #8 and Enya #3.

Also, In the late 80's-early 90's, I was working for an auto parts firm while going to college. They used to have regular product orientation seminars so we would be better able to inform our customers of the products, and hopefully, increase sales. Back then, Armor-All was big a NO-NO for use on tires. At that time, several tire manufacturers were voiding warranties if it was used on their tires. Repeated use over time supposedly caused severe cracking because of its Petrolium based lubricant. We were told to recommend the then new silicone based products, like STP's Son-of-a-Gun, if the customer wanted to use it on tires or to check with the tire manufacturer concerning the use of Armor-All on their tires. Not long after, Armor-All came out with "newer" products.

I can testify to the fact that too much Armor-all in fuel is bad. The normal advice is one or two drops a gallon. Well, the last Slow Combat meet I ever flew in was one of the Frozen Finger meets in Chicago some years ago, and I added a squirtful into my field fuel container (holds about a pint) because I was having problems with fuel foaming (experiments with a 6oz. RC clunk tank). After a couple of flights, I noticed that my glow plugs wouldn't work unless I changed them every flight, and worse - fuel tubing would slip right off the needle valve nipple. I had to use steel wool to fix the latter problem on this particular engine.

Not one of my better contests. Had a shaft run when a prop came off, and in one match I slipped and ended up flat on my stomach while running to get into the pilots' circle. Good thing the geese weren't around at the time, as they tend to leave these cylindrical turds all over the place certain times of the year...

>......... and I added a
>squirtful into my field fuel container (holds about a pint)

A whole squirt into a pint ....... yeah, thats too much. But half a squirt into a gallon is about right.

>I have been using Original formula Armor-All in my fuels for
>years and have never seen it affect plug life. In certain
>helicopter models, its almost impossible to keep vibration
>out the fuel tank due to its location and mounting. One of
>the only ways I could get the heli to run long enough to
>isolate and work on the problem was to start using
>Armor-All. I use a half-a-squirt per gallon. A few drops
>I've found... is near useless. I've also found that its
>properties evaporate if you don't use the gallon of fuel
>promptly so I started using a stunted squirt when I mix up a
>new gallon.
>
>What little searching I've found, the Original Armor all was
>invented in the 50's or 60's before silicone was a household
>name much less available for stuff like this. I've seen
>pictures of plugs that have been damaged by silicone and I
>have yet to see it an ANY of my plugs. (snip)
>
>Mike

Mike, you may have hit upon the answer right there. From what I understand you are using an older formula that does not contain silicone. It probably still has the fish-eye killer in it, among other things, and because it is diluted you need to add this much to make it work. And because it doesn't containn silicone you don't experience any problems. And, again, it may depend on the fuel you are using. As I mentioned in another post, the silicone based stuff we had did not work with the Ucon oil. It needed another ingredient which I now guess (but do not know) was the fish-eye killer. Most commercial fuels also have some anti-foaming agent already in them. It may be that yours does not. But any commercial fuels I have tried (Taffs, Red Max, Power Master, SIG, Rich's Brew) all were able to be "tamed" with just one or two drops of original Armor-All. SIG and I believe Rad Max use Klotz. Rich's Bres and I believe Power Master use Ucon. So it works with both.

Anyway, we gives advice, you does your thing. If what you are doing works for you...?? And, as I said, it may be your use of the older formula. If you look at the new stuff, it will show silicone as one of the ingredients.

Maybe somebody can tell me what I am doing wrong here. I have several models (at least a dozen) with tanks that are either built solidly into the model or are removeable but solidly wedged in position. These range from TeeDee 051 to ST46 power and I run on several different brands of fuel, some home-mix. I don't have foaming problems.

>Maybe somebody can tell me what I am doing wrong here. I
>have several models (at least a dozen) with tanks that are
>either built solidly into the model or are removeable but
>solidly wedged in position. These range from TeeDee 051 to
>ST46 power and I run on several different brands of fuel,
>some home-mix. I don't have foaming problems.

I have found that a tank that is solidly wedged is likely to have less problems than one that is not. Where we have experienced problems is when the tank is not solidly wedged. On my test stand there is a plastic tank that will experience severe foaming problems if left to its own devices (It is just clamped on to the stand). You can see the foam build up in the tank, the mass of bubbles go through the line, the engine going lean. All I have to do is touch the tank with one finger and it stops foaming and the engine goes back to normal. But we have had some in air runs that have gone sour and discovered that the (removeable) tank was not wedged in quite solid. Adding another thin wedge to tighten it in the plane solved the problem.

Now, take your jug of fuel, shake it, and see if it foams. Does it foram up, and does the foam linger? If so, add one or two drops of Armor-All (plain, regular) and do the test again. The foam will be gone. I mean gone. Now we have done this with some of the other different types of Armor-All and it did not work. Maybe this is where the guys who like to use "squirts" come in. But now we are adding water, lots of water. Not good.

And to you, Dave, a lot of (most) fuel manufacturers already include some type of fuel defoamer in their fuel. It is usually mixed with the synthetic oil that they use, or they will add an extra ingredient. When we were still using Red Max (the older and good stuff) I would have them add "extra" defoamer, which amounted to one drop more. But, anyway, your fuel may already be defoamed. If not, and you have a good set-up, no problems. We make sure by checking each new jug before use. We shake it, if it foams we add a drop. It is good insurance even if you are not experiencing any problems "just in case". But don't go overboard.

for what its worth why not use pure silicone, to start with?

>for what its worth why not use pure silicone, to start with?

Precisely. It is expensive stuff, but goes a long, long ways. However, "Fish-eye killer" is another of those magic ingredients, and I think a combination of the two could work even better. Maybe we need to work on a testing of ingredients here.

PRESTONE SILICONE SPRAY!!! Works like a charm!!!