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Tim. What the seller meant was that you should not fill the header tank when filling up the plane. There is more room in the tank and the overflow line will feed any excess into the left main tank. That takes a while (5-10 minutes?) . If you now also fill the mains to the neck, you will end up with a big mess, coming out of the vent of the left main tank. Also the balance between both tanks takes a while. It should , other wise you will have fuel gushing around between tanks at every turn. I usually fill the right tank first, then the left, to avoid fuel spills it is also a good idea to fill them not all the way up. Hartmut ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim and Martha Briggs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 6:25 PM Subject: [COUPERS-FLYIN] Fuel system questions > ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- > > > Ercoupers; > > My new Ercoupe has the O-200 Mod with the electric fuel pump. The pump comes > on after start, runs continuously until fuel in the wings is exhausted, at > which point a light comes on to tell you your wing tanks are dry and to > secure the pump. Fine. The sellers told me to never "top off" the header > tank when I fueled the plane. They said, just fill the wing tanks and then > let the electric pump fill the header tank. They made it sound like the > header tank would overflow at some later point if I fueled it. That didn't > make sense to me. If I understand the system correctly, the fuel pump > continuously pumps fuel to the header tank. Lines at the top of the header > tank return any excess fuel back to the wing tanks. How could the header. > tank possibly get overfilled?? > > For example: If you exhausted all your wing tank fuel, and a portion of > your header tank on a long flight, it seems to me you can refill the header > tank to capacity first. Any fuel above the level of the return lines will > flow down to the wing tanks. Then you fill the wing tanks. There can never > be "too much" fuel in the system, ...right?? > > One more question. The wing tanks have a crossfeed line between them so the > fuel level always stays balanced between the tanks. (Bless Mr. Weick for > thinking of this detail) In fact, the fuel flow to the header tank comes > out of just one of the wing tanks (left?). How fast can gas transfer from > one tank to the other? In theory, I could only fuel one side, wait for > things to balance out and keep filling that one tank.... right? I know > from my first few fill-ups, that it doesn't happen that fast - although I > think the second wing tank to get fueled always took a little less than the > first. Maybe I should let things settle out for a minute and then go back > and check the wing tanks when I fill. The crossfeed could result in less > than maximum fuel in the wing tanks. > > In my opinion, the Ercoupe fuel system is the safest in GA. No switching, > balanced tanks, obvious indications of pump failure and a healthy reserve > even if your pump fails. Each time I fly, I think I've forgotten to do > something - it is that simple. > > Tim > > > ========================================================================== == == > To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm > Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/ > > > ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
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