Re: [COUPERS-TECH] Backward Fuel Cap Solved

[dr . beeman]

Glad to hear it! I didn't get in on the front end of this discussion. I spent much of the last few days wringing my hands disconsolately and weeping quietly in a corner at the series of unpardonable remarks sent to me by several of our European contributors concerning what I considered my balanced, judicious comments on the wishes of our brethern from the Old World to censor this list.  Several of their suggestions may be biologically impossible and one would taste really bad.

 

I hope I can undo some of the terrible damage I have done by offering my abject apology and a small clarification: I never, in this world or The Next, would consider our European brethern in any sense inheritors of jackboots or death squads, merely, on the evidence of their approach to modern terrorism, testicularly challenged.  

 

But if your cap was jammed on by line personnel, permit me to cosole you in an entirely politically correct fashion: no technological advance can ever entirely be made entirely safe from the lowest rungs on the Food Chain.

 

On the subject of fuel, I was out in the pattern the other day trying to create a retractable out of my 415C by driving the mains up past the spar, when I noticed I still had a full header tank where I should have been into my reserve. With my particular aircraft, fuel pouring out of the header across my knees would have been unremarkable, but a decrease in fuel burn made me suspicious.

 

Landed and refueled when what to my surprise I discovered three gallons where there ought to be over five!

 

The culprit - a header fuel gauge whose wire stayed at the full mark because it was slightly bent and wouldn't drop with the lowering of the level.

 

Immediately added to my preflight checklist:

 

"Header fuel gauge - FULL RANGE OF MOTION"

 

Easy to check, easy to fix: when you check the header, just flip the cap over and back and if it doesn't move freely bend the wire slightly until it does.

 

Might save you a visit to a cornfield. Friend of mine in a 415C went into one a few months ago on a dead engine and remarked it wasn't as bad as he thought: he said he ended up on the mains, missed the tractor and chisel plow on the way in, and got his shorts cleaned out before the rubberneckers arrived.. 

 

Dr. R. Beeman 

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Jun 27, 2006 10:45 PM
To: "'Ercoupe Technical Discussion (moderated)'"
Subject: [COUPERS-TECH] Backward Fuel Cap Solved

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Thanks to several suggestions from this list, I finally got the backward
fuel cap removed this evening. This little miscue ate nearly 2 hours of
time. With the cap loose, which aligned the small tang with the large slot I
used vice grips and tilted the cap up in the rear as far as I could. I then
used a sturdy but slim screw driver and forced it under the small tang and
pried that up on top of the filler neck. A slight counterclockwise turn with
the vice grips freed it so that it would rotate and could be removed. Both
tangs ended up deformed, but I was able to reform them for a tight fit. I
believe that if I had not had new gaskets this chore would have been easier,
but not as easy as keeping the caps out of the hands of line personnel in
the future.
Andy Anderson '46 415-D N93609


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