Steve
En-Route
At the Gaston's Fly-in this year several people were curious why I didn't bring the IAR (others were busy fishing...lol).
I chose not to fly it up because the day before the planned departure the fuel selector valve would not move. It was frozen in the RIGHT TANK position. I probably could have flown it to AR in that condition but I really try to avoid flying the family in a plane with a known problem with an unknown cause. Looks bad on the post-accident write-up.
Monday after the fly-in I took the plane to my favorite mx shop to pull the valve (which required draining the tanks that had been topped off to make the trip to AR). Here are some pictures I took of the offending component.
It seems the spring-loaded detent ball assembly had built up enough surface corrosion to prevent smooth operation to point that movement was precluded. There was nothing wrong with the avgas flowpath, just the mechanism for holding the valve in the desired position.
After cleanup and re-lubrication the action is now accompanied by a satisfying "click" when selecting a tank, whereas before the sound was a dull "clunk" as it had been since aircraft acqusition. Now I know what to listen for to schedule the next lube job, which can be done without removing the valve from the aircraft. Only took me 5 years to learn that.
A couple of escorted flight tests post-maintence validated the corrective maintenance activity.
I chose not to fly it up because the day before the planned departure the fuel selector valve would not move. It was frozen in the RIGHT TANK position. I probably could have flown it to AR in that condition but I really try to avoid flying the family in a plane with a known problem with an unknown cause. Looks bad on the post-accident write-up.
Monday after the fly-in I took the plane to my favorite mx shop to pull the valve (which required draining the tanks that had been topped off to make the trip to AR). Here are some pictures I took of the offending component.
It seems the spring-loaded detent ball assembly had built up enough surface corrosion to prevent smooth operation to point that movement was precluded. There was nothing wrong with the avgas flowpath, just the mechanism for holding the valve in the desired position.
After cleanup and re-lubrication the action is now accompanied by a satisfying "click" when selecting a tank, whereas before the sound was a dull "clunk" as it had been since aircraft acqusition. Now I know what to listen for to schedule the next lube job, which can be done without removing the valve from the aircraft. Only took me 5 years to learn that.
A couple of escorted flight tests post-maintence validated the corrective maintenance activity.
