BruceEicher
Well Known Member
Have a great day
I have had a great time but it is time to move on.
I have had a great time but it is time to move on.
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All I can say is that you're relying WAY too heavily on "instructions"I am late sharing this because I thought I might be the only one to miss this...OK no one else is as na?ve but I did find this same on another project in my area and thought it is now worth passing on.
In my first two flights I smelled fuel. Not comforting?so;
I started the investigation from the cockpit and worked both ways in the system. What I found was the tell-tale lines of blue coming from the engine baffling, right hand side. The trail originated from the fuel Divider (spider). Here was a fuel line fitting, capped with a red plastic thread on cap. Port is marked ?GAUGE?.
I purchased from Van?s a new IO-360-M1B and the fire wall forward kit. I may have missed something in the instructions?but found the answer in:
Page seven, note 2 calls out plugging the hole as I now did. The port was for a not often used pressure driven fuel flow meter.
Photo is of mine, with the pulled connector sitting on top and the needed plug installed.
No more fuel smell and I feel lucky.
Experimental...Education and Recreation! I am glad people confess their mistakes on this forum. I am also glad there are experts that alo contribute. Those 2 entities combine to help extreme novices like me avoid bigger issues.
Bruce, thanks for sharing this. I hope you don't feel attacked and will continue to lend us your experiences good or bad. I truly feel this forum needs more of these sorts of confessions so we all learn from them. I, for one, truly appreciate it.
Thank you to the original poster of this thread. It points out a problem with our experimental aircraft. Although we have good building instructions for the kit itself, the firewall forward area is weak in terms of documentation. There are so many different engine combinations that could be used that it would be very difficult to come up with a comprehensive all inclusive instruction sheet. This is why I promote hiring a professional aircraft mechanic to check your work. A leak check of the fuel system is a pretty common practice in the certified world after any work has been done to the fuel system.
An extra set of experienced eyes are well worth the price. I had the good fortune of Bill Marvel assisting in our build. He recommended a bottle check of the IO system...okay, four same size glass bottles taped to the cylinder heads with injection lines in each bottle, 30 seconds on the boost pump. There you have it or in some locals, Bob's your uncle. Place your bottles next to each other to confirm an even flow to each cylinder. Never would have been aware of the test without Bill's assistance.