Hi Paul:
Wow that's quite a story! I certainly hope that is not Lou's problem! I
still want to know if his transfer pump "was" or "was not" continuing to clunk
away!
I am thinking that his pump had stopped operating since he seems to
indicate that the lack of fuel pressure was lighting the red light!
Or if the fuel pump is still going that the fine filter on the bottom of
the pump is clogged! One other possible cause that happened to me was a small
piece of something would intermittently partially block the restrictor hole!
Hoping your problem never happens to me: Maynard.
=============================================
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul M. Anton
To: [email protected] ; lnjhanger
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 3:35 PM
Subject: Re: [ercoupe-tech] fuel delivery problem
I had an O-200 equipped Coupe and had the transfer pump fail in a pretty
dangerous way. The pump operated right up to, and during the failure. I had a
partial engine failure over the mountains in Northern California. The engine
started losing power quite smoothly just as if the throttle had been pulled. I
immediately went full rich and full throttle and the engine picked up.
Since the engine was running smoothly and I had plenty of altitude I went
back to Red Bluff and landed. Inspection found nothing amiss so the next day I
decided to circle the airport and gain all the altitude I could and then fly on
home.
At about 7-8000 feet or so the engine again lost power so I landed and
trailered the plane home.
Upon taking the carb apart I found the bowl nearly filled with flour fine
metallic particles. The Marvel carb has a well where the mixture valve sits and
this had filled up and leaned the mixture. As soon as I touched the mixture
control I disturbed the stuff enough to get some fuel flow back.
I traced this to the fuel transfer pump. it had been hammering itself to
pieces while still working. It ground pieces so fine that they passed the
rather coarse screen on the header tank and the finer screens at the carb and
gascolator.
This formed kind of a metallic paste which settled in the carb bowl.
I had the carb apart maybe 50 hours before the failure and found no foreign
substance.
It looked like internal corrosion had started the failure mode.
Repair consisted of replacing the pump, Repairing the carb and spending hours
siphoning fuel from the header tank, filtering it returning is and repeating
the process until I got no more metal flakes on my filter paper. I used a
flexible plastic tube on the siphon ti reach all corners of the tank.
By the way the removable screen on the bottom of the transfer pump alway had
shown clean upon inspection.
Because of my own experience, I really look carefully at any of those
"clicker" type fuel pumps when I do an inspection.
Cheers:
Paul
N1431A
KPLU
