Finishing up sealing; plumbing and fuel sender

Yesterday I got a lot of work done, though there isn’t a whole lot of evidence of it.  The biggest percentage of the day was spent double and triple checking my proseal on my ribs and rivets and making any final adjustments to them.  I was surprised that even after having already gone over the rivets once, I found quite a few places that needed touch-up.  So what is entailed in double and triple checking sealing?

Its off the frame, but I have a pot of proseal ready to got if I see anything that needs fixing.  This took about an hour as I looked at every surface.  I kept telling myself that time spent here was time well spent.  A leaking rivet later would take hours and hours to fix.

Next up is making  the plate that will hold my fuel pick-up and fuel level sending unit.

Here it is all made up and finished.  As you’ll see from some of the follow-on pics it isn’t that complicated, but very messy.  Again, time spent here being careful will pay off later.  Proseal of course, but also the plumbing.

The nut (called a B nut for some reason) has to be tight and sealed.  If the fitting leaks here what happens is when the fuel level gets below a certain height the leak will start sucking air.  Engines cant burn air, so all sorts of bad things happen that we want to avoid.

The fuel level sending unit is a float type device that is used in every car in the world.  Its technology is simple, reliable and inexpensive.  Float goes up, then the tank is full.  Float goes down and the tank is empty.  It is a circuit that measures resistance.  You test it before you mount it up.  Roughly 240 ohms and the tank is full, 30’ish ohms and the tank is empty…or vice versa, I cant remember off the top of my head.

I might get some time in the shop today, might not.   Last night I got an invite to go to the local EAA meeting in an Ercoupe.  I haven’t been in one of those before, but I’d like to give it a whirl.