Yesterday I flew a bit, when I came back and went to push the airplane back in the hangar I saw fuel dripping out of the bottom of the fuselage.

So I figured it's that good old Cessna valve leaking, and so I drain all the gas out of the tanks to prevent it from just leaking out (five (#$*% dollars and sixty-five mother ($#*$% cents a gallon).

So tonight, I'm under the airplane cleaning the crap off the belly, and removing inspection plates. I reach in and run my hand along one of the control cables, trying to develop a feel for where and how I'm gonna get the valve out without messing anything up.

As I'm running my fingers aft along that control cable (turned out to be the right rudder cable), my finger bumps into the fuel line. But it's still on the cable too. After a moment of "that's strange..." i look in with a flashlight to see the rudder cable entering the fuel line at a 90 degree angle. The cable is not under the fuel line, or even slightly embedded in the bottom of the fuel line, the cable has cut so far into the fuel line that the bottom of the cable is <edit FLUSH WITH> the bottom of the fuel line, <EDIT>.

After a few choice words, I looked a little closer to find that someone had routed the right rudder cable under the fuel line, rather than over it. (Or, they had the valve out and when they put in the fuel line they forgot to make sure the cable was above the fuel line) So every time I pushed the right rudder, the cable sawed slightly into the aluminum fuel line. But I've been flying this airplane for over a hundred hours since I bought it, and had never seen any significant leaks. How this cable sawed into the fuel line and never leaked before is beyond me.

I want to take some photos of this to share with everyone, before I take it apart. So tomorrow I will try to do that, and see if I can post the photos on this forum.

I am guessing the previous owner rebuilt the fuel valve, and when he put it back in he got one cable on the wrong side of the fuel line.

So next time you are doing an annual or have the airplane down for maintenance, please have a look through the belly inspection plates to see if someone made the same or similar mistake on your airplane !

Just had the fuel selector in my C175 serviced, think I'll take a good look inside.
Dave

Bill, I'd say that you are a "lucky" guy!.

About 6-8 years ago seems Bill Berle had a Yankee AA1 -I have a "award" in my shop of rudder cable from under the seat hanging on by a thread 7by19 1/8 inch cable with about 2/3rds-3/4th gone .Rudder on AA1 has a set of "rudder return springs " that will pull rudder to floor and you snap roll and die --- Lets all get in and look at the control cables in whatever kind of airplane and see that there in proper function . Found a Positive battery cable (in Cessna 180) shorted out to airframe belly right below fuel control valve . A little bit of arcing and your done.

A friend of mine's son was doing acro instruction in a citabria, and they had a cable (think it was rudder??) brake because of the battery somehow, but because the instructor was in the plane they got it on the ground and balled it up, but walked away.

Hey, at least it's not that expensive Cessna fuel valve.

182 STOL driver wrote:About 6-8 years ago seems Bill Berle had a Yankee AA1 -I have a "award" in my shop of rudder cable from under the seat hanging on by a thread 7by19 1/8 inch cable with about 2/3rds-3/4th gone .

Gotta give a hearty thanks and respect to 182 STOL and all the other gray haired old cranky and sometimes difficult IA's out there. You guys are the last line of defense. Thank you.

It was indeed Bill Reid (182 STOL) who told me to go back down into that Yankee hell hole THREE times to look at a control cable AD, because I didn't spend enough time to suit his mood on the first two. I had a few choice words under my breath for Bill when he walked away too (Some of you may know that an AA-1 cockpit center console floor area is not a comfortable place to work for anyone larger than a Hobbit).

On the third time, flashlight for dinner, neck twisted, scalp punctured by Cotter Pins, my joints and spine folded into horriffic angles, I saw ONE tiny strand of cable sticking out of an otherwise intact control cable. But that one strand was sticking out at 90 degrees, and even with my single digit IQ I knew a cable doesn't do that.

So after a lengthy demonstration of curse words and physical threats to the airplane that were worthy of Gunny R. Lee Ermey, I removed the cable and found that it LOOKED mostly intact... until you flexed it past a certain angle, at which time it "exploded" to reveal 3/4 of the strands were broken.

I've known Bill Berle since the mid-late 1990's when we were 2-3 hangers apart at Whiteman (WHP) airport .The first meeting did not go well while I was upside down in back of 182 . Since Bill Berle went on many airplanes ,Bill is like a kid in a candy store. Cubs -Taloycrafts-Chief's ,Cessna ,Experimental, Gliders and lots of R/C airplanes . EAA Chapter 40 newsletter writer ,salesman extroversion ,good pilot and constantly thinking and working airplanes. He went to A&P school and is a great mechanic . I'll be back at his place this weekend -overall great guy. Bill Get the fuel line out and we have another wall hanger "to the hall of shame" --- P.S. I've never seen the VW (in the Video) move from it's the hanger.

182 STOL driver wrote:I've known Bill Berle since the mid-late 1990's when we were 2-3 hangers apart at Whiteman (WHP) airport .The first meeting did not go well while I was upside down in back of 182 . Since Bill Berle went on many airplanes ,Bill is like a kid in a candy store. Cubs -Taloycrafts-Chief's ,Cessna ,Experimental, Gliders and lots of R/C airplanes . EAA Chapter 40 newsletter writer ,salesman extroversion ,good pilot and constantly thinking and working airplanes. He went to A&P school and is a great mechanic . I'll be back at his place this weekend -overall great guy. Bill Get the fuel line out and we have another wall hanger "to the hall of shame" --- P.S. I've never seen the VW (in the Video) move from it's the hanger.

Just "a good pilot"? That it?

58Skylane wrote:
Just "a good pilot"? That it?

Nope, Not even close. I gave 182STOL a box of surplus Adel clamps to write that nice BS about me. I'm an incompetent, rusty, bumbling excuse for a pilot at present. Bugs the shit out of me 'cause I remember when...

On to things more relevant to this thread. If anyone can post or embed photos in a post with less aggravation than I have with it, I have five or six good pictures of the damaged fuel line that was the subject of this thread. E-mail me direct or send me your e-mail, and I will send you the photos, and you can post the pictures for me.

I think that most airplane owners will have a "wow" moment when they see the pictures.

I had a similar but not as potentially deadly situation. The A&P/IA who rebuilt my C150TD from a wreck mis-routed a rudder cable ......we heard a funny noise when pedalling the rudder back & forth and investigated, only to find one cable starting to saw a slot at the edge of the hole in a bulkhead way back in the tailcone. Scratched our heads for a while, then streched a string back through there & discovered that the cable needed to be rerouted through a different hole. A look at the C150 IPC confirmed this. Esy mistake to make, luckily an easy fix too.

EZFlap wrote:

58Skylane wrote:
Just "a good pilot"? That it?

Nope, Not even close. I gave 182STOL a box of surplus Adel clamps to write that nice BS about me. I'm an incompetent, rusty, bumbling excuse for a pilot at present. Bugs the shit out of me 'cause I remember when...

On to things more relevant to this thread. If anyone can post or embed photos in a post with less aggravation than I have with it, I have five or six good pictures of the damaged fuel line that was the subject of this thread. E-mail me direct or send me your e-mail, and I will send you the photos, and you can post the pictures for me.

I think that most airplane owners will have a "wow" moment when they see the pictures.

Bill quit trying to make yourself look better than you really are.

"... like I been tied, to the whippin' post ..."

Hey Rooster will you post the photos I took of the fuel line for me? Can I e-mail them to you offline? Send me an e-mail to [email protected] and I will reply with the attached photos. Every time I tried to embed a photo on a forum post I got some kind of error message.

EZFlap wrote:Hey Rooster will you post the photos I took of the fuel line for me? Can I e-mail them to you offline? Send me an e-mail to [email protected] and I will reply with the attached photos. Every time I tried to embed a photo on a forum post I got some kind of error message.

Here you go Pilgrim...

Thanks, those are great and clear pictures of the problem.

Spray a little ACF50 on it and call it good... How'd that rudder feel all that time?

Yeah, what was that sawing noise???

Gump

Zane wrote:Spray a little ACF50 on it and call it good... How'd that rudder feel all that time?

Never any excess friction to speak of. Any slight excess would have been attributed to the nose steering anyway.

The "sawing noise" was probably masked by the snoring noise most pilots make when flying a rocket like this

As a non high-timer Cessna owner (this is my first one), I can't compare it to any memory from in this century. Perhaps someone who has flown these a whole lot would have felt some friction. But the angular deflection on the cable is not much, so I would think the resistance to cable movement would not be that high. I dunno... but I'll definitely be trying to feel the improvement if any on the next flight.

Worst part is that it's not something you would usually go looking for on a normal annual. So I've probably been flying it this way for a while.

I think I'm gonna go out and buy one of those little inspection cameras with the little probe and a video screen...