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Hi Matthew. Leaky tanks in our Ercoupes are generally a bad thing. When my brothers tanks where seeping a little we found after taking them out and cleaning, that due the years of abundance the collected water did its work and both tanks had big holes right above the water sumps. I could find no one willing to weld it , the mechanics told me it can't be welded because the tanks are made from heat treated material. No one, no one was willing to even look at the tanks. The few tanks I got offered by friendly , helpful people were also corroded and in need of an overhaul sooner or later. Buying new tanks from Univair is not possible , at least not for the 415 line, but they do have tanks for Alons (120 -48145 ercoupe fuselage tank $1,350.0) for a steep price. Someone (Maynard) then gave me a tip on asking Mr. Wright Junior for help. To my surprise he did not refuse our items for repair, made it fit into his tight schedule and did not even charge half as much as the new tanks would have cost us. We got back some clean overhauled tanks which will hold for at least another 50 years. He mentioned that he can fix almost any tank you give him. He also said that when the rivets on the bottom start popping then this is mostly due to corrosion and the tank is due for an overhaul. The tanks have to be taken apart (drill out all rivets) cleaned and corrosion treated, maybe patched by welding (carefully) and then riveted back together with the gray sealer (I forgot the name) in the seams. A lot of work which if you have your mechanic do it will make your tanks some very expensive collector items. So if you find corrosion making them leak plan to contact Mr. Wright Junior. If just one rivet popped then you might get away with having your mechanic re-rivet that one. That is a 10 minute Job for your A&P. It all depends on where the gas is leaking from. I found that sloshing the tank will only give you temporarily relief and in the end will make things worse, since the corrosion is not stopped and creeps ahead , making even bigger holes. This was the case in our troubled tanks, where the sloshing compound was lose at several the points and especially where the corrosion was . Worse to worse the lose compound was building excellent water pockets, which then accelerated the corrosion process even more. However John wright Junior can give you more insights on that. The Coupe Capers have his number and so might some people of this list. I misplaced it, sorry. But before you call let your mechanic check how big the damage is, the best is by taking out the tank, which as I remember now is a cruelsome procedure because one has to remove the wing fairings, which are screwed on with gazillions of screws of which the lower ones you can only reach after taking out the floor board - another painful procedure. When I did this for our tanks I had this thought that it would be probably easier to remove the wings and slide out the tanks to the side ... One good thing to mention is that you then gain access to the center spar quiet easy for a corrosion check. Hartmut Matthew Lockwood wrote: > ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- > > Hi Folks, > > My left wing tank is leaking gas. Apparently, this isnt that uncommon. Can > anyone educate me on this? What is the hours it will require the A&P to fix > it. Is it generally a leak that requires a patch, or replacement of the > tank? > > Any info is helpful. > > Thanks, > > Matt > 46C/D > N2864H > > ================================================================== > TO UNSUBSCRIBE go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm ================================================================== TO UNSUBSCRIBE go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm
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