Post-Annual Flight

Jay Honeck wrote:
And, in an incredible coincidence,
the right main gas tank gauge that had stopped working immediately after
some avionics work (the classic "maintenance-induced failure") last fall
turned out to be the float having fallen off the sending-unit arm,
rather than a gauge problem. Who'd a thunk?

This meant draining the tank (full, of course) into 5-gallon cans,
removing 8 jillion screws, disconnecting the fuel hose (dislocate wrist,
cut forearms), disconnecting the grounding wire (dislocate wrist, curse
inventor of flat-blade screw drivers), removing the tank, fishing the
float out of the tank, removing the sending unit, blah, blah, blah.
Reinstalling it was great, too, since the very last screw would not
thread into anything, and I had to start all over...



Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on
the top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is
located. Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for
tank to be empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.

Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on the
top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is located.
Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for tank to be
empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.

Agreed. Making the sending unit inaccessible without removing the tank is
crazy. But it's just another goofy thing in aviation, non-specific to Piper
products. I suspect every owner can tell a maintenance story about
"stupid-design-induced-headaches" on their brand of airplane.

Thankfully, the sending units on our tip tanks are much easier to work on,
should that ever become necessary.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on
the top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is
located. Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for
tank to be empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.


Agreed. Making the sending unit inaccessible without removing the tank
is crazy. But it's just another goofy thing in aviation, non-specific
to Piper products. I suspect every owner can tell a maintenance story
about "stupid-design-induced-headaches" on their brand of airplane.

Thankfully, the sending units on our tip tanks are much easier to work
on, should that ever become necessary.

Jay, didn't you know that the mean time between failures is inversely
proportional to the difficulty in removing and replacing the component.
The senders on the inboard tanks are therefore much more likely to
require service. Geez, and I thought you would have figured that out by
now.

The Cessna was just as bad. In the wing root and a pain in the ass.



Jay Honeck wrote:
Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on
the top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is
located. Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for
tank to be empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.

Agreed. Making the sending unit inaccessible without removing the tank
is crazy. But it's just another goofy thing in aviation, non-specific
to Piper products. I suspect every owner can tell a maintenance story
about "stupid-design-induced-headaches" on their brand of airplane.

Thankfully, the sending units on our tip tanks are much easier to work
on, should that ever become necessary.

Still is.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:21:59 -0700, Newps wrote:

The Cessna was just as bad. In the wing root and a pain in the ass.



Jay Honeck wrote:
Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on
the top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is
located. Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for
tank to be empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.

Agreed. Making the sending unit inaccessible without removing the tank
is crazy. But it's just another goofy thing in aviation, non-specific
to Piper products. I suspect every owner can tell a maintenance story
about "stupid-design-induced-headaches" on their brand of airplane.

Thankfully, the sending units on our tip tanks are much easier to work
on, should that ever become necessary.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:12:32 -0700, Newps wrote:



Jay Honeck wrote:
And, in an incredible coincidence,
the right main gas tank gauge that had stopped working immediately after
some avionics work (the classic "maintenance-induced failure") last fall
turned out to be the float having fallen off the sending-unit arm,
rather than a gauge problem. Who'd a thunk?

This meant draining the tank (full, of course) into 5-gallon cans,
removing 8 jillion screws, disconnecting the fuel hose (dislocate wrist,
cut forearms), disconnecting the grounding wire (dislocate wrist, curse
inventor of flat-blade screw drivers), removing the tank, fishing the
float out of the tank, removing the sending unit, blah, blah, blah.
Reinstalling it was great, too, since the very last screw would not
thread into anything, and I had to start all over...



Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on
the top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is

Yah, but changing one of those bladders is a real treat.

located. Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for
tank to be empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com