We had a fuel smell problem for about six months
with kit A135. It turned out to be a combination
of things, not just one.
We put fluorescent dye in the fuel and used a
black light to look for leaks. This worked fairly
well, but is not useful in out of the way places.
We then taped cotton balls at all joints, and
after several days, inspected them for dye.
This caught another couple of leaks (in the
2" tank outlet hoses).
We still had a bad fuel smell, and assumed
it was the infamous porous filler hose. If you
touched it, your hand smelled of gas.
We finally found that the sealant at the filler neck
to fuselage wall had been dissolved by the
appolsterer's contact cement. We re-sealed
the junction and our fuel smell finally went away,
for the most part. After sitting closed up for a
while, there is the slight smell of fuel when
we first open the doors, but this goes away
soon, and there is no fuel smell in flight.
Terry Seaver
A135 / N135TD
Fergus Kyle wrote:
> Cheers,
> I have been following the Fuel Smell thread for some time, as
> have a fuel filler shortly to be installed and am debating whether a short
> length should be alum. where it might alleviate any deterioration.
> Nevertheless there seems to be an anomaly in the complaints and am wondering
> whether the date of the kit might give a clue.
> Europa seem to have compartmented the outfitting of kits and
> changed sources from time to time - and we may be talking about symptoms
> which are not common to all because of changed source. I know I've seen
> discussions on wings which did not specify the Mark of kit and led to
> confusion. This may be true of the fuel filler thread.
> Let's specify our models and dates...........
> Ferg A064 (+/- 219)
>
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