Dan_E_Root
Active Member
Ladies and Gentlemen, come share with me my misery and elation.
Yesterday, we put two gallons in each tank, pressurized the fuel system with the boost pump and checked for leaks. After tightening up a couple of fittings, we gave her the once over a second time. Finding no new faults, we started my brand new mattituck for the first time. It ran like a champ, the prop tracked true, the spinner looked like it was stationary, God was in His heaven, and the sky was never so blue. I was JACKED UP! What a GREAT DAY!
Later in the day I put five gallons in each tank, and went home. Today there was a puddle under the fuse, and a quart of gas under the seat. It was seeping through one of the aft rivets along the spar in my quick-build tanks. It ran along the seams through capillary action, through the wing root, and accumulated in the fuse. Some of it just dripped onto the ground dissolving the tar in the tarmack under my hangar. I cannot possibly express on this forum how genuinely displeased I am.
Well I pulled the tank off (you guys know how many bolts and screws there are), drilled out the offending rivet, cleaned up the hole, prosealed both sides of the hole, smashed another rivet in there, daubed the shop head with more goop, and cleaned off the manufactured head. Maybe that'll stop the leak, but the true cause of the leak is inside the tank. The proseal installed during assembly along that spar didn't seal very well, got dried out, or whatever. I understand this happens sometimes, and the guys who built this tank did a good job as near as I can tell. But @)#*&#!!!
I'll pressure test the tank tomorrow after the new proseal has cured, looking for bubbles. If it didn't work and I need to do something more, maybe I can get inside with some kind of elongated whizbang thingamajig to slather some proseal in the offending area. (the leak is through that the freakin' rivet along the back row, smack in the middle of the tank along the bottom).
Yesterday was a diamond. Today was coal, but it's gonna be a diamond someday...
Yesterday, we put two gallons in each tank, pressurized the fuel system with the boost pump and checked for leaks. After tightening up a couple of fittings, we gave her the once over a second time. Finding no new faults, we started my brand new mattituck for the first time. It ran like a champ, the prop tracked true, the spinner looked like it was stationary, God was in His heaven, and the sky was never so blue. I was JACKED UP! What a GREAT DAY!
Later in the day I put five gallons in each tank, and went home. Today there was a puddle under the fuse, and a quart of gas under the seat. It was seeping through one of the aft rivets along the spar in my quick-build tanks. It ran along the seams through capillary action, through the wing root, and accumulated in the fuse. Some of it just dripped onto the ground dissolving the tar in the tarmack under my hangar. I cannot possibly express on this forum how genuinely displeased I am.
Well I pulled the tank off (you guys know how many bolts and screws there are), drilled out the offending rivet, cleaned up the hole, prosealed both sides of the hole, smashed another rivet in there, daubed the shop head with more goop, and cleaned off the manufactured head. Maybe that'll stop the leak, but the true cause of the leak is inside the tank. The proseal installed during assembly along that spar didn't seal very well, got dried out, or whatever. I understand this happens sometimes, and the guys who built this tank did a good job as near as I can tell. But @)#*&#!!!
I'll pressure test the tank tomorrow after the new proseal has cured, looking for bubbles. If it didn't work and I need to do something more, maybe I can get inside with some kind of elongated whizbang thingamajig to slather some proseal in the offending area. (the leak is through that the freakin' rivet along the back row, smack in the middle of the tank along the bottom).
Yesterday was a diamond. Today was coal, but it's gonna be a diamond someday...