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Thanks.
I did as you suggested this morning, with one person plugging the drain and using fuel poured around the service panel. The fuel level stayed unchanged and did not appear to leak into the tank, so no indication of a leak based on that test.
Given that the drain appears to work well, it seems unlikely that if water got around the service panel that it would have gone through the seal of the fuel cap without draining out through the hole?
I checked the other access panels on top of the wing and did not see any evidence of any possible water intrusion at other points in the tank.
I don't know where else it could have gotten in.
Only other idea I have is that maybe I could have pumped bad gas?? My last stop coming home was in Fayetteville Arkansas where they had a cheap self service pump. I filled the left tank first and then started filling the right tank, but while pumping the fill rate got very slow and eventually stopped. I assumed it was out of gas so I went to the FBO and had them finish topping me off. The water that came out of the right tank was relatively dirty and makes me wonder if perhaps when that self serve pump ran dry if I was getting the "junk" that was left? Maybe it was all stirred up so the engine ran okay and after sitting several days it finally separated out?
The corroded fuel drain led me to think that water may have been in the tank for some time, but that has to be a coincidence. Other than stirred up bad gas, I can't come up with another reason why the engine could have kept running.
I've been out of general aviation for a while so I'd be interested in any other thoughts on what might have happened.
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