With a wooden airplane it seems a good plan to protect it from an engine fire. One of the things new since we built the plane is Fire Sleeve to cover the fuel and oil hoses. I don't think it give complete fire protection for the hoses but it certainly will give you a few more minutes to get on the ground and out of the plane. It's a fiberglass tube covered with high temperature silicone rubber. You need to seal the ends to keep fuel and oil out so you don't have a fire inside the sleeve. They make a silicone rubber dip for this which is very expensive, more later.
To hold the sleeve tightly to the hose fitting you use these 1/4" wide stainless steel Band-It straps. They are a double coil with a clip to hold the coil together.
You need a tool to pull them tight. The end of the tool sets against the clip and you wind the free end like opening a spam can with it's key. The genuine Band-It tool is about $140 but they make a cheap tool for installing these same type clamps on CV Joint Boots for front wheel drive cars. I found the OTC 4623 CV Joint Tool on line for $14 with free shipping. I only had 6 clamps to install so it worked well.
On the OTC tool (red) the lever with a bend at the end operates the cutter and the other lever winds the free end of the strap.
You position the clamp over the hose end fitting, or in this case over the firewall tube I made. You want the hose protected. Slide the clamp free end into the tool so it goes through the cut off blade, behind the tip. The free end is just long enough to catch the slit in the winder. As a result you need to hold the tool tight to the clip so you can get the tip to make a nice 90 degree bend as you start winding. Once you get the wind to 90 degrees the free end is held very well in the winder. I found a 1/2" socket with a ratchet worked better than the winder handle. You just wind it tight, then lift the cut off lever to cut off the free end. The remains of the free end just slides off the winder by pulling the winder out of the tool.
The cut off leaves about 1/2" of the free end with a sharp end. You could just fold it over the clip. Just like with the end of safety wire I put a little fold at the end, to hide the sharp end, before folding it over the clip. You can see it if you look close at he clamp on the gascolator end of the sleeve.
If you use the Firesleeve End Dip sealer for the ends of the sleeve you need to dip it about 1" into the sealer so the sealer goes past where the clamp is installed to keep any fuel or oil from wicking up the glass fibers. A pint of the End Dip sells for $120 - $145 so it's not practical for a few sleeves. You're just trying to keep oils and fuels from contaminating the glass fibers. One cheaper solution is High Temp RTV. This one is for temperatures to 500 degrees. They make one which is is good to 700 degrees. I chose this one which is focused on Maximum Oil Resistance, since that is the goal. It's a little messy to use but it worked well at the firewall and at the end of the Oil Pressure hose.
Another solution is Self Sealing Electrical Tape. I bought this one at Lowes. One side has Mastic on it so it seals to the other side when you wrap it. The tapes is 1" wide and you need to pull it tight enough to stretch it so it's about 3/4" wide as you wrap. The, low pressure, fuel line has hose clamps so I located the band clamp next to the hose clamp and then wrapped the end onto the hose fitting to get a good seal. They also make this tape in a high temp silicone tape.
All the lines are sleeved and sealed. We're making progress.
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