May 9, 2006

I wanted to do something different on the plane, just for a change from all the engine stuff, but something that would also contribute to getting the thing started. I’m planning for a Memorial Day weekend first engine start. Not sure which day yet, but it’ll probably end up being the last day available after burning the midnight oil to get it ready!

Anyway, the thing I did was calibrate the left fuel gauge. This involved a large avgas purchase. I got the fuel truck to come by and fill up five, five gallon containers. Then I drilled the hole in the fuselage side for the fuel level sender wire, and connected it up to the sender.

On the quickbuild kits, you don’t get the choice of capacitive senders, which is a shame, as the standard float sensors aren’t mean’t to be that good. We’ll see how it turns out I guess.

first thing I did was to run a few gallons of agas through the system toi flush it through. Hmm, pump is on, but it’s not pumping. I wondered if it needed priming. I applied an air hose to the tank to give it enough pressure to force fuel down the lines. Still nothing. I figured out that it may be because the electrical conection to the pump was reversed. I got in the plane, switched the wires, and voila! Fuel came pumping though nicely.

I raised the plane level to calibrate the tanks. I pumped it all out the left tank until it started sucking air, and called that “empty”. Then I started adding gas a gallon at a time, checking the EFIS display for changes in the readings on the calibration screen. The needles on the Van’s gauges didn’t move until about two gallons of gas were in the tank. I started inputing the readings, and the desired display numbers that correspond to the said readings in to the EFIS. Easy stuff really. The Van’s analogue gauges were way off. They might as well not have any numbers on them at all.

I didn’t have my camera with me, so no pics of this event. There wasn’t too much to see really anyway.