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Post by buzz on Jun 11, 2019 17:39:54 GMT
Howdy everyone. Have some questions and want to get any info you have or experiences that may be the same as mine. I have a P2008 with 914. Yesterday I had my annual. Everything went great till the end when pulled it out of the hanger to do a run up. When I turned on the fuel and hit the master switch I had a significant stream of fuel coming out of the vent tube and eventually the exhaust. It would not start as well. Seems to me I have a stuck carb float and the engine is flooded. Does this sound right to you guys? Have you had a similar problem? What steps did you take to remedy? Any additional thoughts? Oh one more thing is there was no actions taken on the engine during the annual that would have caused this.
I have noticed a small amount of fuel from the vent tubes after shutting down in the past but not nearly this amount.
Thanks
Buzz |
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Post by LSA Flyer on Jun 12, 2019 1:37:37 GMT
You need to drop the carb bowls and check the floats. You have either a failed float or debris jamming the float needle. There are Rotax SI bulletins for the floats and several revisions to the design. All the changes were for the same reason: the float coating would fail, the float would flood. You should remove the lower spark plugs before turning the engine over in case there is hydraulic lock and change the oil if contaminated with fuel.
It would be normal for the A&P to check the floats at the annual. It's nearly impossible to assemble the carb bowl and floats incorrectly but it's easy to nick the float coating if handled roughly or dropped and create a leaky float. If you flew the plane after the annual and it was OK you can rule out incorrect assembly but suspect a sunk float.
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Post by buzz on Jun 12, 2019 17:12:58 GMT
Thanks Steve good info.
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Post by ChrisConnor on Jun 12, 2019 19:15:24 GMT
I have seen an A&P accidentally misassemble a float/needle during inspection. He had to disassemble it again and do it over, then it was fine. So, it is possible. Like Stever stated, Rotax qualified A&P's usually disassemble the bowls to inspect the floats at annual.
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Post by buzz on Jun 25, 2019 3:48:16 GMT
Well today we took a look at the carbs to see what was causing all the fuel to dump on the ground. We thought for sure the floats had taken on fuel and were heavy. We waited for new ones to show up before opening up the carbs. But after weighing them we found that they were fine. We did however find some debris in the left fuel bowel. Not sure how it got in there. Wasn't a lot but still not right. We also noted that the vertical pins that the floats ride on were a bit dirty so we cleaned those up and put it back together. The result was everything normal. It started right up and not a drip out of the vent tubes.
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Post by LSA Flyer on Jun 26, 2019 1:19:13 GMT
Thanks for posting the resolution! It's thoughtful of you to share the follow up information with the group. There were some material changes made in the float tube over the past few years to make the pin & channel less apt to bind. Certainly likely debris was the culprit. If any of the fuel lines were disconnected and then reattached it's very common to get some rubber bits cut by the fuel barb when pulling and reattaching the hose. These are often the source of subsequent carb problems occurring right after maintenance. It's ideal to drop the bowls after fuel line work and just check.
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