As some know, I had my engine overhauled and added the 0-200 crank under the STC. The first post-overhaul problem I had was with fuel spraying out of my fuel cap vents. This seems to be fixed after adding the fuel restrictor on the fuel pump line.
At the same time (but not mentioned earlier), I had fuel dripping from the carbureator. My A&P/IA explained that this is common (the carbureator was just overhauled too). It did not leak before. That one is solved by shutting the fuel valve off when the aircraft is parked (at least I no longer find all my fuselage tank fuel evaporated after sitting two days). I assume it may still be leaking during flight. Here is my new problem... Yesterday morning I planned a flight early in the morning (beautiful weekend here in Austin, TX area... calm winds and severe clear skies). When I got ready to go, I could not turn the engine over. The temperature in my hangar was 50 degrees farenheit and the plane sat in the sun for about 30 minutes (it was probably 40 degrees outside). I hand propped and got the engine going. After preflight and a warmup at 1000 rpm (fuel pressure was in the green), I tried to do my run-up, it seemed go through fuel starvation and the engine died... Outside again for another hand prop. During run-up same thing. All my fuel valves were open. By the way, my amp meter showed no charge during the brief period the aircraft was running so I assume the battery went completely bad or my generator (also overhauled) went belly up. My A&P came out to the house later in the afternoon. Now the plane was sitting in about 70 degrees of heat. We had to hand prop and this time the engine kept running. The run up went fine, mag check, carb heat... all went well. If this were the result of my morning attempts, I would have flown. I did not after this as I did not want to have the engine stop at 200 feet during takeoff). My A&P believes the carb needle may have been stuck due to the cold and sitting. That sounds too simple to me, but I want to throw this out to the group. At this point I would like to fly a great Ercoupe mechanic to Austin to do a good once or twice over. Ideas? Offers to make a holiday trip at my expense plus fees? Thanks, John
