Walt
Well Known Member
This guy was extremely lucky, he asked me to do a prop balance and check for what he thought may be a vaccum leak because the engine was running "a little rough" (the aircraft had recently made a long cross country trip into our airport).
Well when I taxed the aircraft over to do the balance I could barely keep the thing running unless I kept working the throttle. No way I could balance this thing without fixing whatever was going on first. After about a 2 minute taxi over to my hanger, I shut it down and proceed to do a preliminary inspection.
It didn't take me to long to spot the rather large fuel puddle that had already accumulated on top of the airbox and fuel dripping everywhere. Further investigation revealed that the 'B' nut on the fuel manifold was loose and fuel was spraying on the engine block and running down the fuel line inside the fire sleeve
Keep in mind the fuel pressure in this line at idle speeds is just a few PSI, at high power settings the pressure goes much higher. I had a really good leak going at idle, at full power, fuel would have been spraying everywhere.
This is why I always say: put a wrench on all critical bolts and fittings everytime you do an oil change or at least every condition inspection. Merely looking at things is not good enough!!!
Somebody was watching over this guy....
Here's the 'B' nut that was loose, you can see behind it all the blue on the bracket and engine case. Fuel was also running down inside the fire sleeve. The top of the fire sleeve "had" red silicone sealing it, I peeled it away to inspect the hose fittings (it was loose and coming off anyway at this point from being soaked in fuel).
Needless to say I checked the rest of the fuel lines FWF and found a few others that were under torqued.
The prop balance came out good: from a very high 0.523 to nice 0.022 IPS
Be safe out there folks, and take care of your machine.
Well when I taxed the aircraft over to do the balance I could barely keep the thing running unless I kept working the throttle. No way I could balance this thing without fixing whatever was going on first. After about a 2 minute taxi over to my hanger, I shut it down and proceed to do a preliminary inspection.
It didn't take me to long to spot the rather large fuel puddle that had already accumulated on top of the airbox and fuel dripping everywhere. Further investigation revealed that the 'B' nut on the fuel manifold was loose and fuel was spraying on the engine block and running down the fuel line inside the fire sleeve
Keep in mind the fuel pressure in this line at idle speeds is just a few PSI, at high power settings the pressure goes much higher. I had a really good leak going at idle, at full power, fuel would have been spraying everywhere.
This is why I always say: put a wrench on all critical bolts and fittings everytime you do an oil change or at least every condition inspection. Merely looking at things is not good enough!!!
Somebody was watching over this guy....
Here's the 'B' nut that was loose, you can see behind it all the blue on the bracket and engine case. Fuel was also running down inside the fire sleeve. The top of the fire sleeve "had" red silicone sealing it, I peeled it away to inspect the hose fittings (it was loose and coming off anyway at this point from being soaked in fuel).
Needless to say I checked the rest of the fuel lines FWF and found a few others that were under torqued.
The prop balance came out good: from a very high 0.523 to nice 0.022 IPS
Be safe out there folks, and take care of your machine.