Sounds like everything is going well! Glad the engine is tight and the fuel
tank problem was easily repaired. Did you get hit by the Superior cylinder
AD as mentioned below?

Nope, we have once again dodged the latest of the dreaded engine ADs.
With our O-540 I have felt like the guy who has been told to "Dance!"
by the bad guy in the black cowboy hat, every time I get one of those
official-looking letters. So far, they haven't hit me!

:-)

Our leak saga continues. I had purposefully let the bottoms of the
wings get dirty for the last several months, so that we would be able
to easily track any fuel leaks/seeps back to their source. Yesterday
I found evidence of a larger leak than the ones we had fixed in the
main tank, which were obviously just seeps.

As you may recall, the first evidence of our leak (other than a faint
odor in the cabin when you first opened the door) was when Mary
spotted the rubber wing-root seal hanging down, fattened and gooey
from gas exposure. My wrench and I have puzzled over this, since the
leaks we had found (and fixed) seemed to be too small to cause this
type of damage.

So, while I was under the plane cleaning out the central drain filter
(the 235 has a central "pee-drain" in the belly, like the Cherokee 6),
I carefully tracked down every stain. With the wing-root inspection
fairings removed, and a mirror, I was able to spot a tip-tank hose
fitting that showed evidence of leakage.

My A&P proceeded to dislocate both his wrists getting a couple of
wrenches on that fitting, and was rewarded with an easy 1/3 turn to
make it tight. He is of the opinion that this was our main culprit,
and that by tightening that fitting we have resolved the last of the
fuel issues. I sure hope so.

We've fixed some other nagging problems. In the cabin, on the front of
the back seat (where the calves of your legs rest) is a control that
allows us to "pee" the gas tanks out of the belly drain. This is
covered with a cheesy plastic panel, with an even cheesier metal door,
retained by an even cheesier spring. This thing is so bad that there
is an AD on the door, because EVERYONE catches it with their feet
getting in the back seat. (You can't just remove the dumb door,
either, since without it you could conceivably have a passenger catch
his pants leg on the pee-drain control lever itself, which would cause
you to dump all of your fuel overboard in flight...)

On each flight I tell my kids "Be careful of the fuel door" -- but it
still gets broken. We have repaired the damned thing (with JB Weld)
at every annual since we bought Atlas, but it's such a cheap design
that this year I asked my mechanic -- a champion homebuilder -- to
invent a better mousetrap.

So, he looked at it for about 30 seconds, went over to his metal
press, and started cutting aluminum. 20 minutes later, I had a legal,
metal-reinforced plate holding on a MUCH stronger metal door. We
then spray painted it to match the interior, and voila! Hopefully, I
won't be screwing around with that little bugger again.

(Doug Vetter, if you're reading this, IMHO this is an example of the
type of repair your A&P could have done with your battery box, and
saved you $700.)

My A&P also reinforced the tail-cone screw attachment points by
putting in a "ring" of aluminum down the line of screw backing
plates. No more metal backing plates screwed into brittle plastic!

Here's a true but all-to-common sad tale of my owner-assisted
annuals: As I was reinstalling the gas tank (by finger screwing in
the 3.2 million stainless steel screws that hold it in the wing) all
was going well -- until the VERY LAST SCREW. That one just fell in
the hole, and would NOT tighten.

This couldn't possibly ever happen on the FIRST screw, or even the
20th screw -- it HAS to be the last one. So, I had to take them all
out, jostle the tank a bit, and start over. Story of my
life... ;-) (I'm just glad I had only finger-tightened them. If I
had driven them all home, I'd have committed hari-kari on the spot...)

Today I'll put the interior back in (all was well there, just needed
some cleaning/lubing of the control pulleys, as always), and button
Atlas up. Other than the fuel leak, this has been a really easy
annual.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"