Donald, Take a look at the photos on Hartmut's excellent http://ercoupe.info website: http://www.ercoupe.info/?n=Main.HeaderTank
Notice in pictures 2 and 5 that the inlet and overflow-outlet openings are about even with each other and both "several inches from the bottom" and near the top. It's a pretty wide, flat tank and has some reserve space near the top. If the nose tank is completely filled, there's a fair amount of fuel that needs to drain before the header tank is down to the official level. This takes time, powered only by gravity through a small outlet tube. Beware if you fill the nose tank then immediately fill the wing tanks to the brim, lurkers. There SHOULD be no way that a fault in the outlet could let fuel drain to the wing tanks. That is unless your tank has some other design. I've heard mention that some tanks might have a "standpipe" which I would deduce comes up from the bottom but I've never seen such a tank. (I'm not a mechanic and mustn't play one on the Internet!) If you have the normal header tank and the tank drained out, your leak is probably toward the engine, either the fuel lines (possible but not so likely), the carburetor (common) or the primer (not so likely but it happens occasionally). There will probably be some unusable fuel in the header tank even if it drains through the fuel line to the carb or via the primer. Ed (the non-mechanic) Ed Burkhead http://edburkhead/Ercoupe/index.htm ed -at- edburkh???ead . com (change -at- to @ and remove ??? and spaces)
