Inverted fuel tube stuck on pro seal

[shempferd]

I had my tanks resealed this spring by Weepnomore and just discovered a serious potential problem. I was flying on my left tank, which was just under 1/2 full and the one with the inverted tube, when the engine started surging. I switched tanks which fixed the problem. After checking the vent and fuel lines, I unfortunately had to remove the tank(again) and open it up. Thats always fun. Anyway, everything looked normal. My guess is that the weight stuck on one of the pro-sealed screws at about the 1/2 full level. The weight had a blob of pro-seal stuck on it. By the time I took the tank off and rotated it, the flop was making it's requisite noise so it must have broken loose when I inverted the tank.

Anyway, just another consideration when sealing your tank with a flop tube.

[JonJay]

Great heads up and staying cool in a stressful situation in the air. I am sure you did, but Weepnomore needs to know...

[shempferd]

He knows. I'm not blaming him. He's done a bunch of tanks and has never experienced this before. He's actually overnighting me some fresh sealant to get this done. I guess it just comes down to %$#% happens.

I'm going to coat my weight with fuel lube before re-attaching my cover plate and standing the tank on end so the flop tube hangs away from the curing sealant.

This is yet another reason to keep our planes simple, particularly fuel. I have never flown extended inverted flight nor do I really want to. Probably shouldn't have put it in in the first place.