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Date:  8-27-2020
Number of Hours:  0.30
Manual Reference:  21-09
Brief Description:  Smoke oil/fuel tank pressure test

After 23 hours, with the shed at 14C the manometer is just above the reference mark. I declare the smoke oil tank sealed, and breathe a huge sigh of relief, as I realise my method of making it had set me up for a fall. There is no way to test for a leak BETWEEN the smoke oil tank and the adjacent fuel tank. If I were to do this again, I would stop the upper skin at R57, skin it, pressure test it, then install the rest. Maybe. An alternative would be to do as I have done, and check for a leak INTO the smoke oil tank from the fuel tank. Maybe. Either way, to fix any such leak will require cutting up the tank.

Transfer the manometer to the fuel tanks. This is a bit more complicated, I have the manometer on the outlet from the sump tank. I have the port vents tied to each other, a pump bulb on one of the starboard vents and some plastic tube plugged with a wood dowel on the other. The approximate number of hand pumps that pressurised the smoke oil tank does nothing to the fuel tanks, and I realise, (rather obviously), that the volume is incomparably greater. Tentatively apply an air line, with the compressor turned down a bit and find this works controllably. Inflated to above the reference mark, plugged the line and adjusted to the reference mark with the hand bulb and its release valve,

Seemed to be holding pressure reasonably, but checked all connections and discovered the air is freely flowing THROUGH the wooden plug I made from a bit of dowel. Made a new plug from a 1/4" bolt with the threads cut off, and this tests OK.

Over 2 hours the manometer had gone down 2", with the shed at 18C. Pumped it back up to the reference, and walked away
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