Fuel leak

[Gregory Hedgpeth]

During pre-flight I noticed a fuel leak, lost 4 gallons in 4 weeks out of the right tank. Nothing lost from Left.

The fuel selector was on the right tank, though I noticed it was slightly past the detent. Could that cause the selector to leak? All evidence of leak seemed to be under the belly by the selector / strainer, blue stains. Nothing on the wing root.

It's a Comanche 250 with fairly new 5 year old bladders.

I changed the selector to the other tank, right on the detent, cleaned up the belly and noted the fuel levels of both tanks. Will see if I have any fuel smell or leak evidence tomorrow.

Thanks!
-Greg

[Ed Asmus]

I cannot say if missing the detent by a little can be the cause of the problem. I'm certain others on this forum hopefully will have more to offer on that. What I will say is I completely agree with your strategy to determine if a problem truly exists.

By the way, your clean up job looked great. Keep going! ) I know its a pain but years ago I made the effort to clean the belly from spinner to tail on both airplanes I fly which is a big job. Now I clean them after every flight or two and it takes 5 to 10 minutes tops. It's good for the airplane, looks way better, and makes issues that arise much more apparent!

Good luck and keep us posted on the results!

Ed

[Kristin Winter]

You have a problem. Either a line is loose, or the selector valve is leaking. Do you have 2 or 4 tanks? It is not a detent problem. It is probably a leaking valve problem.

[Gregory Hedgpeth]

We have 2 main 30-gal tanks. Tomorrow when I go out to check it I'll pull the plastic cover off the selector valve and take a look in there. Looks like 3 screws and then a screw on the post of the indicator/lever.

[Kristin Winter]

There is a further panel you will need to pull up to get at the selector, but that is where you need to start looking. Pictures might help sort it out.

BTW, welcome to ICS.