Those sight-glass fuel gauges

[ianboag]

I have to say mine (in a J200) appear pretty useless. As soon as I take off something like 15-20 litres seems to disappear from each tank. A tank with 20-25 l in it appears to be empty most of the time. I tried putting one wing low or the other and it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. Is this just me?

 

 

[turboplanner]

No, I've got to the stage of dipping the tank to check, and still get huge discrepancies.

 

 

[Captain]

Ian

 

 

 

I find with mine that I need to have the ball right in the guts for a while, then look up to the sight gauges. Have you tried that?

 

 

 

Regards Geoff

 

 

[ianboag]

I have a fuel flow meter and it totalises, so I tend to go off what that says I have left. That's OK so long as I don't have a leak out of the fuel drain I suppose.

 

One of the things that keeps me calm is the breather tube from the underseat header tank. It goes back to the wing tank just beside my left ear and there's a few inches of it visible above the top of the pillar cover. If there is any fuel - in either tank - then this breather is full of fuel almost to the level of the wing tank. So long as I can see fuel there I know that everything is feeding OK. Turning off the left or right tanks (individually) does not affect this level. If I turn off both tanks the fuel vanishes out of the breather tube instantly as the header tank starts to drain. 6 litres though - it would still take a few minutes to cough the engine.

 

I'll try the "ball in the guts" approach ......

 

IB