Annual Off to a Good Start

On Mar 21, 11:29 am, Newps wrote:
I replaced a bladder a year ago. 42 gallon tank in the left wing. Bo
bladders cost the same as Cessna bladders of similar gallons when you
buy from the three main aftermarket sources like Eagle or Floats and
Fuel Cells. No idea what Beech charges, probably horrendous. But
nobody buys a bladder from Beech or Cessna. That would be stupid,
they're buying them aftermarket, why pay the up charge? Labor for a Bo
is less than on the 182 I had by several hours. First reason is because
you are standing on the ground and not always going up and down the
ladder. Second is all the snaps are easily reachable. Third all the
connections are easily accessible, no dissasembling the headliner to get
at the sender, etc. Fourth the tank is easily removable. How do you
get a Cherokee tank out? Derivet? Remove a wing?


"that would be stupid, why pay the up charge"

Well, let's see. Based purely on personal experience, the life of an
aftermarket tank is usually about half that of an OEM tank-primarily
depends on how good of a job the aftermarket boys did in "engineering"
the new tank. The other reason might be that there are aftermarket
Bonanza tanks out there that will NOT fit in the applicable make and
model of A/C. Really neat thing to find out after you have spent the
time (and tied up a hangar bay) to send out a bladder for eval, find
out it's junk (big surprise), purchase an aftermarket tank ("why
should I pay the extra $$") and find out that either the tank sump
drain nipple OR the main fuel feed nipple will line up and poke out
through the little hole...

A basic older Bo tank is a little easier than a 180-twice, BTW, I've
allegedly done both. A King Air is a piece of cake, the size of each
fuel bay/bladder is a lot smaller in relation to the size of the
access panel. You still have to remove all the old tape and glue
residue and re-tape. Aztecs suck rocks.

Despite Jay's tale of woe, pulling a Cherokee wing tank is a matter of
removing some 10-32 structural machine screws and sliding the whole
thing out (in one piece) out of the wing. Repairs are just like any
other "wet-wing" structure, but you have the piece of wing laying on
the workbench, with ready access to the majority of the rivets.
Getting the screws out can be a real bitch, but it doesn't involve any
rivets, snaps or duct tape. The composite Cherokee tip tank is another
story-I'd rather have a bladder any day of the week.

BTW, why did you charge yourself labor for changing out a bladder?

TC

Despite Jay's tale of woe, pulling a Cherokee wing tank is a matter of
removing some 10-32 structural machine screws and sliding the whole
thing out (in one piece) out of the wing.

Yeah, other than the last screw not catching a nutplate, it's really
not bad. (If you like Popeye forearms, this is the job for you!) And
it's NOTHING compared to working with a bladder tank, according to my
A&P, a man with 40+ years wrenching.

The composite Cherokee tip tank is another
story-I'd rather have a bladder any day of the week.

Thanks goodness I've not had to deal with those, other than
cosmetically. I'll bet a leak is a real SOB to fix.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

wrote:


"that would be stupid, why pay the up charge"

Well, let's see. Based purely on personal experience, the life of an
aftermarket tank is usually about half that of an OEM tank-primarily
depends on how good of a job the aftermarket boys did in "engineering"
the new tank.

Ah, no. You'll get 20-30 years from a bladder. The OEM gets their
tanks from the same people the aftermarket comes from.


The other reason might be that there are aftermarket
Bonanza tanks out there that will NOT fit in the applicable make and
model of A/C.


I'm only aware of the three aftermarket suppliers. I went with the
cheapest, which is currently FFC. The other two are Eagle and Hartwig.
One of those just buys from FFC and charges about $100 more per tank.
The other, Hartwig if I recall right, was about $500 more.






BTW, why did you charge yourself labor for changing out a bladder?

I didn't say I charged myself labor, only that there's less labor in the
Bo than in the 182.

I'd sure rather swap a bladder in a Bonanza than fix a leaking Mooney
tank. Working with very bad chemicals thru a small hole is no fun at
all.

On the Bonanza, doing the snaps in the correct order helps. You can
also snap them from the TOP of the bladder which is much easier than
working
through the fuel cap hole.

Bill Hale



Despite Jay's tale of woe, pulling a Cherokee wing tank is a matter of
removing some 10-32 structural machine screws and sliding the whole
thing out (in one piece) out of the wing. Repairs are just like any
other "wet-wing" structure, but you have the piece of wing laying on
the workbench, with ready access to the majority of the rivets.
Getting the screws out can be a real bitch, but it doesn't involve any
rivets, snaps or duct tape. The composite Cherokee tip tank is another
story-I'd rather have a bladder any day of the week.

BTW, why did you charge yourself labor for changing out a bladder?

TC

On 23 Mar 2007 10:12:18 -0700, "
wrote:


I'd sure rather swap a bladder in a Bonanza than fix a leaking Mooney
tank. Working with very bad chemicals thru a small hole is no fun at
all.

On the Bonanza, doing the snaps in the correct order helps. You can
also snap them from the TOP of the bladder which is much easier than
working
through the fuel cap hole.


BTDT (Bonanza and Mooney). The chemicals aren't bad IMHO, it's the
initial eval and clean-up and figuring out where to put the chemicals.

Don't get the wrong impression, installing a new OEM bladder is a
pretty normal maintenance task - less cleaning out all the old tape
and residue, banging down any rivets or sheet metal edges and
re-taping.

The problem is in installing certain aftermarket tanks and pretty much
any repaired/refurbed tank.

I'm 6' 3"/210# and am allegedly usually the guy that can reach (or
gets stuck reaching) the hard-to-reach snaps. Bo' and Baron bays
aren't bad. But it ain't as easy as yanking a wing tank out of a
Cherokee.

TC