When using water to leak test a tank, add a few drops of liquid soap. The soap will break the surface tension of the water and help it find smaller holes. Another possibility is to use windshield washer fluid. it already has the soap and the alcohol will further reduce surface tension.
Wayne > KR> Pressure testing my wing tanks > Tony King tking58 at gmail.com > Thu Jan 30 19:58:45 EST 2014 fuel tank > > Previous message: KR> Pressure testing my wing tanks > Next message: KR> Pressure testing my wing tanks > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > On 31 January 2014 10:37, The Leonards <pamks at bigpond.net.au> wrote: > >> Gents >> Use a balloon attached to one of the inlets/outlets of you tank. >> > I did the balloon thing on a tank I built recently. It was a riveted > aluminum tank with lots of pro-seal. Put the balloon on the vent, put the > air hose on the outlet, inflated the balloon, closed the outlet valve and > left it. The balloon stayed up. After about 4 hours I decided that was > good enough and let the air out. > > 2 days later I decided I wanted to make a dipstick for the tank so I set > the tank at the orientation it would be in the parked aircraft and started > filling it with water from a measuring jug. I got less than 4 litres in > before water started leaking out. By the time the tank was full (about 32 > litres) I had significant leaks from about a dozen spots. All this from a > tank that 2 days earlier tested as airtight. > > Any suggestions? > > Cheers, > > Tony
