Quote:
Originally Posted by Mountain Dew
I'm confused by Steve's "air trapped under an open stopper" analogy. Is this describing vapor lock or trash in a fuel line?
Bill W.'s comparing the fuel line with a human esophagus is off the mark. Our beloved Model A's are not living organisms.
Simple question, what would keep a vapor bubble from passing up through the fuel line and venting through the gas tank? Perhaps a high spot in the fuel line ,trash in the line, bad fuel cap, something like that.
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Sorry for the confusion. I was talking about a sink with a stopper that is raised and lowered by a hinged push rod arrangement--not a completely removable stopper or a plugged drain line. When the rod is pulled up, the stopper drops; when the rod is pushed down, the stopper lifts a bit and water can drain around it. In my experience, which I may have mistakenly assumed to be universal, sometimes the sink still won't drain even with the stopper in the open position. When it is jiggled around, a bubble of air burps out and draining commences.
Technically, this is not vapor lock since the bubble is air, not vapor. But otherwise it is a good example of how a bubble can block gravity driven flow of liquid even when the system is open to the atmosphere above and below. Such a bubble can form in an inline fuel filter, which is what the original question was about.
I believe that the basic explanation for the blockage in the face of gravity is surface tension.
Steve