Wing - Right Fuel Tank

2004-09-09 - Leak testing the right fuel tank. (0.5 Hrs).

Setup the right fuel tank for the leak test. I had to hunt down the leak test kit, again. It's interesting, but Van's instructions don't say anything about testing the tank for leaks. Everyone is using a homemade manometer, but there has been some confusion about what height to set the manometer in order to test the tank. I have probably contributed to the confusion, because I thought the pressure should be a little over 1 psi, and that would be about a 29" column of water. I have Van's leak test kit, and here are the correct numbers. The leak test says the maximum pressure in the tank is 1.61 psi, which would be about 46". However, it says you should test with a 50% safety margin, which would be about 2.4 psi, or 5 1/2 feet of water. I'm not sure how I got this confused, but everyone else seems to be using about 29", also.

With the tank on my work table, and the tube that I used last time, I can safely get a 45" column of water, so that is what I used for this test. I could probably get a little more than 50", but I wanted to make sure that if the tank leaked, the water would not flow back into the tank, so I left a little room.

Test setup.
The water has gone down about 1" after two hours. Not to worry, it always does this.