Fuel pump working
I first started messing with the fuel pump. I figured that if one of the connections was loose or faulty that the pump might be sucking air instead of fuel. I removed the line going directly into the pump to see if I could feel any suction at that point. None that I could detect. I fiddled with a few things, but nothing helped. I did other stuff until after lunch when I tried a new tactic. I removed the fuel pump assembly from the plane and rigged up some temporary input and output lines. I put the input into a small container of fuel. Rigged up power and nothing. I then moved my make-shift input line directly to the fuel pump. That’s when it finally started working. I put the assembly back together, and it still worked.
I put the assembly back in the plane, and it still worked. I’m very happy it’s all working, but I wish I knew why it wasn’t working. My guess is that there was some kind of air bubble stuck in the pump, and I finally knocked it loose. The EMS is reading 23 gph with the fuel running into a gas can. With the fuel hose hooked back up to the servo it’s reading 40 psi, which seems a bit high.
In between all of that I finished trimming the flaps, rigging the flap push rods, and temporarily rigging the aileron push rods. The flaps took a lot longer than I expected. Lots of iterations. The second one of course was easier. I still need to tweak the ailerons, as I was only approximating the in-trail position. It’s cool to have the flaps and ailerons working.
This is what I ended up for the left side flap push rod cut out. Ignore the squiggle. The Dremel got away from me. For symmetry I did almost the exact same squiggle on the other side.
Last thing for the day was to do the magnetometer calibration. I used the compass on my GPS to find approximate north. It’s good enough for now. I’m just tired of seeing the warning message on the EFIS every time I fire it up. Once I’m taxing, I’ll take her over to the compass rose for a proper calibration. It was very cool to pull the plane out of the hangar. She’s looking very close to ready.
When I ran out to grab a sandwich, a 737 was on the runway doing engine run-ups. It eventually taxied back to the end, turned around, and took off. Very cool to watch.
