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Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:34:41 -0400
From: Ernest Christley <echristley@nc.rr.com>
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        Rotary motors in aircraft <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Useful tip
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Here is a useful tip that will keep you from chasing what you think is a 
gas leak that is etching the PolyBrush on your fabric belly.

I was having trouble finding the source of a persistent leak under my 
fuel tank.  The tank sits high behind the passengers, and about 18" 
above the fabric belly.  The smell of gasoline was strong, so that is 
what I assumed it was.  When I mopped it up, it was red, though.  Making 
the mistake of trusting an assumption, I figured it must be melting the 
red PolyBrush covering the belly's fabric.  I finally resorted to 
covering a large portion of the belly with old t-shirt fabric  after 
mopping up as much of the liquid as I could.  Left for a day, the fabric 
wicked up a few isolated spots of the old liquid, but nothing new.

The leak must have sealed itself. (Huh!?!)

OK.  Back to reality.  Tracking the stain as far uphill on the fabric as 
I could I noticed it was near a T in the brake line.  Wiped the fitting 
with a bit of the cloth, and sure enough got a red stain.  Slid the 
cloth underneath the fitting and pulled the brake lever.  Got a 
sputtering bubble of red liquid oozing from one side of the T. 
(Dang-it!!)  Grab a couple of wrenches, applied a 1/4 turn, and pull the 
brake lever again.  Hmm?  That seemed to be a LOT firmer than it has been.

The problem and resolution only takes a couple paragraphs, but I've been 
chasing this thing for a couple weeks.  I would suggest to builders:

1) Get rid of "cleanup rags" and anything else that will try to hold 
onto gasoline and gasoline smells after you're sure the tanks are 
sealed.  The rags being in the workshop kept the smell around and misled 
me to believe that there was still a leak.

2) Tie a piece of white cloth or paper napkin around all of your brake 
fittings before filling your brake system for the first time, then 
immediately apply the brakes until you get solid response.  Any leaks 
will show up as blaring red stop signs on the white cloth.