This barely even merits an entry here – I’m not even putting down any hours logged – but tonight I put a balloon on the right tank and pressurized it. Hopefully it’ll hold air and my leak testing can stop there. Last time the leak down test didn’t work, which turned out to be due to air leaking out of the base of the balloon. I only found this out when I pressurized it again and covered it with soapy water to look for bubbles.
Unfortunately, the soapy water test requires daylight, something that’s in short supply now that the time has changed. It’s dark by the time I get home from work these days, so the soap test would probably have to happen on a weekend…but I’m about to be gone the next two weekends. So I decided to give the leak down test a try again. This time I rolled up an extra balloon around the vent line fitting to act as a gasket, and put two zip ties around the balloon to hold it in place.
I’m hoping that’ll seal well enough for me to not have to do the soap test. If not, I might go so far as to go into work early one day this week just so I can make it home before dark and do the soap test. I’m feeling a pretty strong compulsion to have the leak testing done before I go out of town for some reason.
Here’s a fuel tank with a balloon attached. Exciting, huh?
