Dreaded fuel gauge repair

[ArtVandelay]

And how frequent an occurrence is that in a Mooney with fuel bladders?

Don’t know, but in aviation we try to have duplicate or secondary functionality for safety reasons.
By not having a way to monitor your fuel level in your tanks and only relying on typical fuel burn rates , a leak in the tanks or hoses will not be noticed. To me that’s unacceptable and if buying a plane with non working gauges, I would require them to be fixed. This should be a prebuy item.

[Andy95W]

38 minutes ago, ArtVandelay said:

Don’t know, but in aviation we try to have duplicate or secondary functionality for safety reasons.
 

I would maintain that we have that due to our separate left/right fuel tanks and lines.  Simply switch tanks and land as soon as possible.

And I find it fairly ironic that we are discussing “duplicate or secondary functionality for safety reasons” for our single engine airplanes.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Andy95W

[A64Pilot]

Only time I have seen a big fuel leak suddenly appear was when a fuel drain broke and the guts fell out. it had been repaired a time or two as in O-ring replaced when it leaked, theory was maybe over the years a drop or two of water that occasionally is there eventually caused corrosion, and maybe a new one should have been used instead of replacing the O-ring.

So it can happen on a perfect fuel tank.

If the gascolator drain breaks, your going to have a bad day.

Edited June 26, 2021 by A64Pilot

[steingar]

On 6/25/2021 at 11:58 AM, ArtVandelay said:

Don’t know, but in aviation we try to have duplicate or secondary functionality for safety reasons.
By not having a way to monitor your fuel level in your tanks and only relying on typical fuel burn rates , a leak in the tanks or hoses will not be noticed. To me that’s unacceptable and if buying a plane with non working gauges, I would require them to be fixed. This should be a prebuy item.

That's just plain silly.  One engine, one vacuum pump, I have but one gear retraction mechanism (albeit a darned good one).  If one tank springs a leak it'll run the tank dry.  Switch tanks and be on my merry, fix it when I land.  If it springs a leak in the engine bay I'm going to have bigger problems than running out of gas.  Lots and lots of airplanes have crap fuel gauges, I'm far from alone on this.

Like I said, got plans to fix it.  Not because I subscribe to the above reasoning, but because it's supposed to be that way and I have a fix that doesn't rob me of my shirt in the process.

[ArtVandelay]

That's just plain silly.  One engine, one vacuum pump, I have but one gear retraction mechanism (albeit a darned good one).  If one tank springs a leak it'll run the tank dry.  Switch tanks and be on my merry, fix it when I land.

I had 2 vacuum pumps…one electric. Now I have 2 electronic AIs.
Emergency or manual way to drop the gear.
Your engine has 2 magnetos, 2 spark plugs per cylinder. Obviously a twin would be more redundant.
I have 3 ways to know my fuel levels, factory senders, wing mounted gauges and fuel flow…and they’re all functional.

[Hector]

Again, fail to see the point of having gages in your plane that don’t work. I have a JPI with fuel totalizar accurate to within one gallon but having fuel gages that don’t work or are not reasonably accurate would bother me. I have a second attitude indicator and a second GPS and backups for a lot of stuff. Would it be ok if I let half of everything fail? If I have a gage in my airplane it is going to work, period. If not then remove it.


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[RobertGary1]

12 hours ago, Hector said:

Again, fail to see the point of having gages in your plane that don’t work. I have a JPI with fuel totalizar accurate to within one gallon but having fuel gages that don’t work or are not reasonably accurate would bother me. I have a second attitude indicator and a second GPS and backups for a lot of stuff. Would it be ok if I let half of everything fail? If I have a gage in my airplane it is going to work, period. If not then remove it.


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Do you mean short term or long term? I’m not going to stick on the ground because only 2 of my 3 certified attitude indicators is working. 

[Hector]

Do you mean short term or long term? I’m not going to stick on the ground because only 2 of my 3 certified attitude indicators is working. 

No, I mean long term. No issues with waiting for a convenient time to make repairs. I was referring to not repairing them at all on a permanent basis


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[steingar]

6 hours ago, Hector said:

No, I mean long term. No issues with waiting for a convenient time to make repairs. I was referring to not repairing them at all on a permanent basis

I've been flying for two decades now.  I've personally owned 3 airplanes, and only 1 had working gauges because they were brand new.  I've seen loads of airplanes with crap gauges, this isn't unusual at all.  We're supposed to be able to figure out how much gas we have and how much we need without them. 

[Hector]

14 hours ago, steingar said:

I've been flying for two decades now.  I've personally owned 3 airplanes, and only 1 had working gauges because they were brand new.  I've seen loads of airplanes with crap gauges, this isn't unusual at all.  We're supposed to be able to figure out how much gas we have and how much we need without them. 

Or you could spend a few hundred bucks and overhaul the gages and they will work great for probably another 50 years.  In over 30 years of flying I too have seen many airplanes with bad gages that go unrepaired.  I consider a few hundred bucks for good fuel gages a very small price to pay for piece of mind. 

[Prior owner]

I was quoted $1800 by Lockhaven to overhaul the factory cluster gauge- because I have the older style cluster where the gauges cannot be removed individually. All I needed was the fuel gauges overhauled, and they said the entire cluster has to be done. So, for some of us, there is more than a couple hundred dollars involved with making the factory setup accurate again..

[MBDiagMan]

On 6/24/2021 at 10:43 AM, ArtVandelay said:

That’s works fine until you spring a leak in the fuel tanks.

Great and valid point.  The chance of a leak is slim, but having working gauges of some description helps identify that.  
 

Your post brought to mind the difference between a low and high wing in this regard.  On a low wing you can see the caps and see that they’re secure.  A few times on my other plane, which is a high wing, I have had the thought “did I get those fuel caps back in place firmly?” It’s nothing but in flight paranoia because I always check them, but being able to see them while in flight is comforting.

[Hector]

I was quoted $1800 by Lockhaven to overhaul the factory cluster gauge- because I have the older style cluster where the gauges cannot be removed individually. All I needed was the fuel gauges overhauled, and they said the entire cluster has to be done. So, for some of us, there is more than a couple hundred dollars involved with making the factory setup accurate again..

Good point. I have the cluster with individual gages. Forgot the older models is all in one cluster.


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