Fuel tests, flaps, misc prep

 We've been taking care of various miscellaneous things to get ready for inspection.  We performed several fuel tests to determine the unsuable fuel as well as total fuel for our airplane.  Each of the fiberglass wing tanks hold 12.5 gallons, the header tank holds 2.3 gallons.  The unusable fuel in the header is just 8 oz, and the unusable fuel in each of the wing tanks is about 1/2 gallon.   

During the tests, we found that our low fuel detection system was not working.  After some debug, we determined that the sensor itself was bad, so ordered a new one and replaced it. The new sensor is working and our bingo fuel detection is once again up and running.

Bad fuel sensor that was replaced

Fuel flow tests were performed with the airplane in level attitude (which is the critical attitude for this plane), and also tail low (corresponds to nose 15 degrees high).   Tests with individual fuel pumps running, and both running were performed.  Even with minimum fuel, fuel flow through the system was always above 24 GPH  which was very good since our minimum requirement is 9.25 GPH (125% of max fuel consumption).

Fuel was added a bit at a time so we could determine markings of fuel level.  Fuel levels are visible through the fiberglass tanks, so adding markings will give us an approximate fuel level.  A label with markings will be made that will be glued to the tank.

Detailed Fuel flow data is shown below:

We found that our flaps were rubbing a little bit on the flap gap seal in some areas, so carefully bent the edge of the flap gap seals to prevent this from happening.

Wear mark on flap shows where flap gap seal was rubbing

We also adjusted the routing of a wires in the engine bay to avoid potential rubbing, and wire-tied the heater hose valve in place.  Hours: 15