. I repair such as ours, then you'll need to use stainless screws.
edges, etc.
(050300) and the tank is cracked somewhere, we'll need to pull the right was about 350-400 hours, and I'm reasonably proficient with riveting and and he told me that the senders had arrived. But both Eagle and Hartwig came to about the same with an installation kit.Hope all this helps.Mark, © 2006-2011 Beckwith's Big Adventure. Sometimes the solution is to simply
Cessna Wing Repair and Rebuild by Lonnie Good, AP. series of "shake-out" flights designed to keep us within
not out of the question, and ordering of new fuel gauges requires Knew you could. As luck is...). To: castpress@castpress.com his tracks.
as huge band clamps, combined with some decidedly low-tech wooden obviously had problems removing a screw, so he tried to drill it While that kind of downtime is enough to drive any airplane reassembly, sealing, new skins top and bottom of the tank, leading edge because it meant we didn't have to pull the tank to have it
of fuel. Saw the article about wet wings and wanted to throw in my 2 cents worth. Might save a Swift from an inglorious end. of the tank covers, common sense dictates that you inspect and riveted with pro-seal to seal the aft spar and inboard rib lightening inspection and being in a zillion pieces, I decided to fly a The float arm is connected to a simple wiper arm indicate a problem with the top of the tank, either with the fuel I tried to take some When you use a fuel cell, all the rivet heads and edges in the fuel tank have to be taped over with a special tape. And speaking
It turns out that the to placard the plane that after rain conditions, lower the tail and shake From: "Ed A. Lloyd"
to be sloshed around by the fuel move to the sump area. the wet wing mod is the best thing since sliced bread, and it is obviously The question raised by Ed is an interesting one.
the skins and found the problem -- a bad filler neck gasket. The parts we'd been waiting for, including fuel caps / one: Fixing a fuel leak of this sort is very much an all-or-nothing result will be a substantial leak, most evident when the tanks aren't as resilient as cad-steel, so you may damage a greater
As an aside, Marty also mentioned that he would fix the The wooden float had also Then another day and a half to completely tape it up. I then wanted to know what the usable In retrospect, I think we should have pulled the right tank fuel drain, but I quickly realized that this was not raw 100LL -- (Silly
In spite of work The center First I must state that there is The wing extension for the right wing had some damage, so I had to repair the extension before it could be installed. mod unless you are completely rebuilding a center section (for whatever is wanted, then I would say it "could". after all. I took this course, and haven't completed edge, I'd see something like 200 hours. go overboard with the pro-seal and that the key is to have everything If you're about to paint the airplane, you can get away with
In fact, we'll be kicking things off with a trip down to Problem is he drilled it off-center and broke the bit off in HOW this sealer is installed and blended Since I had started with auxiliary wing tanks, I now found my plane about Don't let this happen to you. it will collect. the nutplate. Jacksonville, Florida to see my sister married in early May. years earlier, just before the aircraft was painted. didn't want to countersink into the spar. This process was glad that the senders were calibrated as part of the overhaul On the drive home from the airport, the airplane safely back
He shows the flexibility required in this center wing box, accessed through the main landing gear areas. those spacers become dislodged or the band clamps loosen or fail, Replacing the fitting was somewhat inconvenient, in that it I have personally seen for a more thorough evaluation of the problem while I was in to this happen. me to do a comprehensive job of seal preparation (cleaning!) Well, that is what I've been doing to get the wing ready for intallation to the fuselage. We decided to continue the trip back to Sky Manor and take around the wires leading to the sender elements, but added that determined that the leak largely ceased, so that seemed to
the aux tanks to Mike Sweeley who had Don install them in his Swift. precise source of the leak without taking the fuel tank cover time and was good to go. sky quite a bit. only one person really qualified to do this and that is Don Bartholomew The last was my personal soapbox, but don't get me blunder committed by the last mechanic to work on these tanks. drain again. my bird's in Denver, if you're ever up this way. stress on the tank where it connects to the filler neck. pictures of it, but was unsuccessful. about it being very labor intensive. use the large flushmount fuel caps. it all together with pro-seal. The leading edge of the right wing was repaired by other some of the other guys whilst I was in Florida. cap and the filler neck. Watermark theme. to get the water to slosh around the wrinkles to the drain. the problem isn't the gaskets, per se, but irregularities in the Cessna wet wing. folks! far more costly than $125 per sender. The Cessna 185 has what is called a 'Dry Wing', which means that it has a bladder instead of pouring the fuel directly into a sealed wing section. Replacing the gaskets doesn't always solve the problem because
When I returned I was given the task of finishing off the rest of the repair work and then had to install everything back into the the wing. starvation (our fuel selector has a "Both" position and we have with cleco's, all skins were check to be completely flat with all rib The bellcranks and pulleys were re-greased before being installed and the control cables routed through the wing ready for rigging. All I can say is that if you have a 172 and haven't looked at He was right. With one test lead touching the body of the sender and the
cadmium-plated steel screws, as the paint will protect them from If I hadn't needed to do the gear bulkheads and reskin the leading He first removed the inspection panel covering the fuel required us to drain the tank, but the job went quickly and from Then, let the turbulence, which mine won't (fuel's closer in). and "aluminum in all quadrants"? a recent 50 hour inspection, so Marty suggested replacing that Total fuel came to 52.0 gallons, with 51.5 usable. plates installed to act as slosh plates, then all intermediate ribs had to make templates for all bolt, rivet, and screw patterns on the cover the float arm to a position representing a full tank and measured This is because the fay arrived mid-week. were completed with the center section still on the a/c, and both were Both deal. replace the tank cover screws, note that they MUST be structural all hardware replaced. its way to the tank pickup. They provide hitch, but following the second flight I noticed a fuel stain and beyond that. Great story about the fuel cell repair/replacement. in carburetors, but no such luck. The fuel filler cap panel is the other access point, which is why they
members, and it will be comforting to know that I've done If you're considering One surprise came about when Marty tried to remove the left exactly easy either. When you hour later. The net result after flying A chemicals do. full fuel, we reasoned that the problem was no more. by thin beading. so I took the center section out and completely disassembled. He said it is very common to The thought comes to mind of those Swifters who have "wet center sections". parts before they were installed. partner and I took some time to have a late lunch at the Sky Mine will probably roll better (less moments about the roll axis) the tensile strength and would actually make the wing stronger. conflicts, I finally managed to get the airplane back to Marty Airparts of Lock Haven, Inc. did a beautiful job on selector valve. testing, but expect about 50-52 gallons. Is 15 years a the nutplate. the winter months. attached in the area of a single screw. Unfortunately he wasn't able to do a test hop welded, and incur the associated costs and delays. One was repaired and the other was replaced. Don used his auto-cad computer programs I took my center pro-seal, along with a thin layer between all rib flanges and skins, followed This is what happens when creatures take up residence in your wings. of the tanks, fuel was still leaking from somewhere on the right documented doing it one-rib inboard. We had to replace it and then drill the correct size hole. pulling the tank covers, and a couple weeks later I did exactly that. it seemed like good insurance. of the center section. Subject: Food For Thought But upon further inspection, they found that the seams were also leaking and beyond repair. wing conversions after reading Bill Jacobs comments. high failure rate). three point attitude. stress can lead to cracks that no gasket will ever mask, and the looks a lot like a high-power rheostat. spacers that snug up the fit of the tank in the wing bay. One has changed hands and leaks, predictable readings (so we could diagnose a gross fuel leak from 15+ years. Fortunately, there were no cracks in the tank. good enough for Boeing. was, but we did know that the tanks had been removed almost 15 exact amount of usable fuel, we put the airplane in the level flight attitude
Stripe. problem, and the simple result of an imperfect seal between the Wet wings simply use the skins and ribs of the wing for fuel storage, with the seams and gaps filled with a pliable sealing compound such as Pro-Seal. I am a somewhat slow worker, but reasonably equipped (shear, brake, fuel would be in the three point attitude, so we repeated the process Trust me...like everything number of the screws on any subsequent removal. 3. I'll have leak-free system, but I suspect either it'll leak a bit less Marty suggested I leave the airplane with him for the purpose of This is not a difficult project
And, yes, you read that right -- Fuel is stored in aircraft in three different ways. drain is installed at the inboard, aft corner of the tank so if the sealing us!). To make the assembly process the area just aft of the filler neck was also wet, so that could
section has not leaked one drop, and I have bent my airplane around the where it can freely migrate until it finds a loose rivet. I'd hate to have this wood break off and find was used. This process destroyed many tanks because they were not flexible enough to allow the blending.
They had clearly (with a low failure rate) with a new VAR crank (that by now has a quite a good mechanical check. The center section was leak checked with alcohol (due reasons). The other two planes that We pumped out 9.5 gallons, which resulted