PA-12 Fuel sight gauge

Hey Greg, Mark, Tim...We've got a guy going to AK next week from here in his PA-12-135. He's got those horrible old fuel sight gauges that come out of the bottom of the wing. One of the floats doesn't work (saturated, who knows? It sits at the bottom and doesn't move).

Now, I can get the guage itself from Univair but the float part is not listed anywhere (I think it's Piper part 10-868-000 or 686 or something close to that). Do you know where I could find one of these dinasours and if successful in locating a float, how do you replace it if the float is bigger than the hole in the bottom of the tank?...Brad

Brad, sorry I can't help. I had the holes welded up and installed PA18 sight guages inside. Sorry.

Even they are not very satisfactory as the angle is to great due to the shallower depth of the PA12 tanks. this was exaggerated by the raised height of my plane sitting on 6" extended gear and 29" tires. It took over 6gal of fuel in the tanks for them to even show on the sight guages at 3point and over 3gal at level flight! (thus the reason for the istallation of th JPI fuel scanner! (PIECE OF MIND)

I pull the float w/stem out the fuel filler with a pair of mechanical fingers. A real pain in th @##. The stem is nothing more than an aluminum rod ( welding rod). Wag-Aero has the whole assembly prt# M-311-000 for $64. They are PMA'd for the 12,14 &20.

Steve

thanks

Thanks Steve...not looking forward to the job but it needs a' doin'..Brad

Brad,

The cork bobber should fit out through the hole in the bottom of the tank when the gage is unscrewed. Drain the tank, screw it out, clean the old sealant off the bobber and let it dry in the sun for a few days, (or heat it if you don't have that kind of time). Then give it a light coat of epoxy, let it dry and reinstall. Should be as good as new. You just need to drain the fuel down past the gage to do this, selecting that tank and draining from the fuel bowl is the easiest, the whole thing is not a hard job at all.

sight

Thanks Mark! Life aint so bad after all. Brad