Hello again Alan, Australia calling!
Sorry for the delay in replying but have been out of circulation for two
days.
My previous statement that my friend took his tank out was incorrect. (He
was told to take the tank out but didn't)
The problem with his tank was that a split about 3/8" long developed (for no
apparent reason) about half way down the back of the tank close to the
centreline. On reading your recent posts, I note your problem is much lower
than this so the following may not be very relevant.
Anyway, trying to be brief which is hard for me, I will endeavour to explain
the repair process he carried out.
He cut a 9" x 6" hole in the cockpit module between the head rests and then
cut the same sized hole in the top of the tank. This allowed access to find
where the leak was. The split was at the level of the remaining fuel so was
easy to find.
He then cut another hole in the back of the cockpit module to allow access
to the split and drilled 1/8" holes at each end of the split. Using a 1/16"
bit, he ran it along the split opening it up to allow the introduction of
Redux / flox mixture.
Two 3mm aluminium plates were made up 2" longer than the split and 1" wide.
Two clearance holes were drilled in the outer plate and the matching holes
on the inner plate were tapped to accept screws. (not sure of size) These
holes were put about 1/2" beyond each end of the split. The plates were
then curved slightly lengthways.
Both sides of the tank around the split were roughened with 60 grit paper
and a fairly generous Redux / flox mixture applied to the concave sides of
each plate after which they were screwed together ensuring no voids and that
excess oozed out all around both sides. Excess was then wiped off of
course.
TESTING
He also glued pieces of plate to the piece removed from the top of the tank.
One to a shiny part and one to a roughened part. Both stuck well but on
bending each after cure, the plate on the shiny part popped off. He
couldn't remove the one glued to the roughened part.
The top of the tank was then repaired thus :-
Made up two aluminium plates with a 15mm overlap all around and removed the
middle of one of them leaving only 15 mm around the outer edge to make a
flange for the inside.
Holes were drilled every 2" for AN3 bolts as per the repair plates and the
two pieces bolted together using a cork gasket (cut as per the inner flange)
under the upper plate.
This repair was done quite some time ago now and so far has been 100%
successful.
I hope yours requires less surgery than that I just attempted to describe.
Cheers and good luck with yours.
Kingsley - Masochists read on
PS - a bit of trivia.
On Saturday 7th April, QANTAS (Australia's International Airline) will be
flying the first Boeing 707 they owned into Longreach (Central Western
Queensland) to its final resting place and to form part of the QANTAS museum
in Longreach. [QANTAS, an acromym for Queensland And Northern Territory
Aerial Services, was originally formed in Winton (100nm from Longreach) in
the days of Avros and operated out of Longreach] I understand this was the
first B707 entered into airline service in the world. It will join a B747
200 that was also flown in a few years ago after it was stripped of
everything possible and with minimum fuel on board to make it light enough
to land on the short strip. I was not there to witness the B747 landing but
the fascination for we aviators is watching such a large aircraft land on a
runway that has rarely seen aircraft any bigger than a Fokker Friendship.
Turning these aircraft around on the end of the runway is a mammoth task as
there are no parallel taxiways etc, it will have to turn and backtrack and
the wing span is greater than the width of the runway.
Such a rare sight is this, that my friend whos problem I described above,
hopes to pick me up and then for us both to fly up to Longreach in his
Europa to see the landing of the 707. He has to travel 250nm to pick me up
and then we have a 350nm leg from my place to Longreach. For the
information of all Pommy and European Europaphiles, we will not see a single
town on the track from my place to Longreach. If the weather is true to
form for this part of the world, I'll bet we don't see any clouds on the
whole trip either. (I shouldn't have said that - Murphy might read this!)
As I said, a bit of trivia so please forgive me for my indulgence but I
haven't been on a descent cross country in a Europa before so I am really
looking forward to it.
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