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Fuel pressure 14-20 psi? & updates


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A&P hasn't been able to get the LW15473 (Tempest rebuilt: https://m.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/eppages/TEMPESTfuelpumpLYC.php) behaving; fuel pressure still pegged at 35 psi, way past the red line (it has been checked with a calibrated gauge). I've read the threads here and don't see a clear solution. Mechanic mentioned "get[tong] the fuel pump that puts out 15-20 psi." I don't know what that means (the LW15473 is supposed to produce 25-30 psi), but assuming he knows what he's doing... That's within the green arc (14-30 psi), but lower than I was seeing (25 psi with just the mechanical pump, all day every day). If it's in spec, run with it?

 

Otherwise, what's the fix?

 

Fuel tank apparently does not have a leak; they checked the drain, selector, all fuel lines, etc, nada; I had them put fuel in it and they've been sticking it daily, no change (12 gallons read every day). I'm going to watch it like a hawk though, and just always keep a reserve in the tank I have confidence in, for now. I'm a little paranoid these days.

 

The NORDO situation with the tripping breaker appears to have been a weak (from sitting and several starts with no time spent recharging; battery is less than a year old) battery. (When the repairs were done on the ramp at the NAS, no power was available.) Now that the battery's been on a tender, we're seeing 70A at 2200 and the breaker's not tripping.

 

The A&P is insisting on marking the engine to reflect it's been converted to an A1A (started out life as a C1C); I don't know why it's an issue now, the conversion and installation was done in 1985, but whatever.

 

Baffles reinstalled correctly. Mags were IRAN'd and one magneto coil was cracked. New p-leads and plug wires. Plugs all good. 78s on all cylinders. Brittle vacuum hose from pump to firewall replaced, couple of new scat tubes in the engine compartment. Swung the compass and compiled new correction card (sticking with the VCC for now, that may change). VOR antenna was apparently bent and stress cracked about halfway down each side - replaced. Elevator bungees cleaned and lubricated. New brake pads. Lots of little deferred maintenance items found and attended to.

 

Inching closer to having a plane again ... Every week or so I get a promise it'll be ready in a day or two. (Had to do my BFR in a rental Cherokee, the horror! :) )

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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22 minutes ago, chrixxer said:

The NORDO situation with the tripping breaker appears to have been a weak (from sitting and several starts with no time spent recharging; battery is less than a year old) battery. (When the repairs were done on the ramp at the NAS, no power was available.) Now that the battery's been on a tender, we're seeing 70A at 2200 and the breaker's not tripping.

 

Keeping my fingers crossed for you, wish I had the answers to your fuel pump...

Just to clarify, how do you get 70A at 2200 RPM?  All my equipment put together probably doesn't require 70A, and the factory ammeter only shows +/- charge current, not total current...

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2 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

Keeping my fingers crossed for you, wish I had the answers to your fuel pump...

Just to clarify, how do you get 70A at 2200 RPM?  All my equipment put together probably doesn't require 70A, and the factory ammeter only shows +/- charge current, not total current...

Slap a dummy load on it for testing?

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Also, I have a bitchin' stereo installed. Old school MOSFET Phoenix Gold amps, Focus 6.5" separates, dual voicecoil JL Audio subs, Blueray player feeding four HD screens, Dolby ATMOS... 1 farad capacitor for on demand power spike delivery (really noticeable when the drums kick in in AC/DC's Thunderstruck)... Also works great for de-icing. Put on some D.J. Magic Mike or some well-mixed dubstep and watch the ice break up and shake off the wing.

Crank that baby up and it's easily a 70A draw by itself.

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29 minutes ago, chrixxer said:

Also, I have a bitchin' stereo installed. Old school MOSFET Phoenix Gold amps, Focus 6.5" separates, dual voicecoil JL Audio subs, Blueray player feeding four HD screens, Dolby ATMOS... 1 farad capacitor for on demand power spike delivery (really noticeable when the drums kick in in AC/DC's Thunderstruck)... Also works great for de-icing. Put on some D.J. Magic Mike or some well-mixed dubstep and watch the ice break up and shake off the wing.

Crank that baby up and it's easily a 70A draw by itself.

Back in the old days, I had a 650W amp driving two 12" subs in my old Honda Civic.  That poor car literally fell apart eventually from the shaking...

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4 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

Back in the old days, I had a 650W amp driving two 12" subs in my old Honda Civic.  That poor car literally fell apart eventually from the shaking...

I’m approaching old man status.  I have 2 10” subs, and a bunch of other speakers and around 4000 watts of amp juice.  My kids like it.  :ph34r:

Edited by ragedracer1977
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I still have the stereo I installed in my Jeep when I was 18. Well, in a Ship of Theseus sense. The head unit's been replaced multiple times, I've gone through a couple of amps, had a sub and enclosure stolen, the 6x9s I bought off a kid in high school finally disintegrated (but the little boxes I got that fit between the roll bar and the wheel wells are still with me), the 4x6s in the dash are Pioneers I got while I worked at Best Buy, and before I got 3RM home, I took advantage of having an empty hangar to rip out all the cruft and wiring from previous installs to do the current set right ... It jams.

The Bimmer is about to get a whole system make-over (rocking a "Harman Kardon" "Business CD" system currently). JL sub in a custom enclosure, to keep the trunk usable for a full-sized suitcase. Focal separates in the doors. The Dynavin head unit with backup camera and CarPlay interface. Alpine 5-channel Class D amplifier.

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FWIW 

Old school car stereo buffs my remember it.

I used to be an engineer at Orion Industries and designed the power supply for the HCCA 2250.

I never was a stereo guy, but worked on a bunch of show vehicles when I worked there. 

I would always wear ear plugs and ear muffs when working on them!

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14 hours ago, ragedracer1977 said:

I’m approaching old man status.  I have 2 10” subs, and a bunch of other speakers and around 4000 watts of amp juice.  My kids like it.  :ph34r:

:o:o  Good lord, how do you power that?  That's around 200 amps at RMS power, right?

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7 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

:o:o  Good lord, how do you power that?  That's around 200 amps at RMS power, right?

A little over 300.  I have a 225 amp alternator, the battery is the buffer when I really use a lot of power.  My headlights dim quite a bit.  Fortunately, you rarely hit peak amps.

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1 hour ago, ragedracer1977 said:

A little over 300.  I have a 225 amp alternator, the battery is the buffer when I really use a lot of power.  My headlights dim quite a bit.  Fortunately, you rarely hit peak amps.

Good grief.  I imagine it's hard to go uphill when you have the volume all the way up! :D

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3 hours ago, ragedracer1977 said:

A little over 300.  I have a 225 amp alternator, the battery is the buffer when I really use a lot of power.  My headlights dim quite a bit.  Fortunately, you rarely hit peak amps.

im embarrassed to say I had an early 90s S10 with 2x15" and 4x12" subs with around 6000watts going to them.  And a range of mids and tweets with another 2000watts.  2 massive caps, 2 batteries and neon...  Subs in the bed with a custom cutout into the cab.  The subs would make you sick to your stomach and the tweets would make your eyes bleed.  Drove my mother nuts.  She could feel me a mile away.  Not sure why I'm not deaf really.  

Good times, spent half my life upside down under the dashboard of that truck.  Probably why the mooney doesn't bother me so much.

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On ‎10‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 6:04 PM, McMooney said:

Adding a second battery or couple largish caps, will stop the lights dimming

The show vehicles I used to work on would typically have 20 batteries. If you ran them with the windows rolled up it would blow out the windshield. With all those batteries you could run it at full power for 15 minuets or so before you would need to charge them all up, which would take a few hours. I don't remember all the details, that was in the early 90s but I think we built one van with 20,000 watts. The stereo wiring was not connected to the van wiring at all. We built a 200 amp 12 volt supply that we used to charge the batteries. On the aforementioned van we used 4 of those power supplies to charge the batteries and leave them connected while debugging it. Most of the contests wouldn't allow external power during competition.

We would burn them up, then improve the design so it wouldn't burn up. Fun times! I can't tell you how many times I would be working on the power supply and keep running it harder until it blew. When I first started I would get all excited when it would blow, I would jump for the power switches and start pulling cords and such. After a while I would just sit there and enjoy the show. There is nothing like having 27 TO220 MOSFETs explode and start burning simultaneously. Little chunks of transistor cases getting stuck in your face.

Edited by N201MKTurbo
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