> John Hurst was
> > telling me that the pipe between the tank and the filler tube was prone to
> > "Weeping".
> > I was wondering if this was a common problem, and possibly the hose was not
> > really intended for fuel.
>Paul,
>Our XS has a fuel smell, much of which
>comes from the rubber filler pipe, as you
>mentioned.
I do know that Europa tried hard to get the right materials for the job.
They were let down by suppliers on more than one occasion.
I think there are two problems here. (hopefully only two)
1, vapour getting through rubber hose.
2 ventilation of the cockpit area.
It's not easy to ensure perfect hose joints everywhere using worm drive
clips so there will inevitably be some fuel vapour floating about in the
airplane. Vapour transmission through rubber hoses can be prevented by
using solid aluminum fuel lines, which I would recommend (except in the
engine bay for vibration reasons.) Europa #1 also had a carbon fibre filler
tube, (Jon's son broke his windsurfer mast, so there was a nice bit of tube
spare, just the right diameter.)
With a little research and ingenuity, which may well already have been done
by some of our Australian friends, (they had to test for CO in the cockpit)
it should be possible to dump all of this noxious vapour overboard. This
would also help to keep exhaust fumes out of the cockpit, another
occasional problem. One sometimes gets that smell on slowing down and
lowering flaps and gear. This implies that there is some air entering
through either the undercarriage bay, the flap drive slots, or even the
firewall, (unless you have a nice moulded phenolic one) {:>))
Graham
|