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Here is more information:
My aircraft went into annual in October 2009. It had empty aux tanks and about half main tanks. Along with a normal annual inspection I had my A&P working on many other items. One of which was my fuel gauges. The Aux gauges never worked and the main gauges were intermitted. As long as I was going to have the fuel gauges refurbished, I decide to have the entire instrument cluster checked and refurbished. The person working on my fuel gauges recommended that I have my fuel senders checked for functionality. After inspection, it turned out that all were either non functional or had some problems. I had all the fuel senders refurbished also. It was the end of January before the aircraft finally emerge with all the new repairs and upgrades. Performing the entire upgrades place me under financial strain and it has taken about 6 weeks to catch up. The aircraft was sitting out on the ramp during this time. Colorado has temperature highs of about 40s and lows in the teens around this time of year. Yesterday was the first opportunity I had to perform final post annual checks on the aircraft and fill up the main tanks. That's when all the fuel started pouring out from the wing airframe. I checked this morning and it finally stopped. I suspect a few gallons on each side poured out of the tanks.
After thinking about it today, I'm suspecting the gaskets on the fuel senders didn't seal and the fuel flowed inboard and leaked out into the airframe until the fuel level became low enough it could not leak out anymore. I called the A&P this morning and they already have it in the hanger. Hope he has some information for tomorrow.
Karl
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