I had a day off on Friday, so I decided to inspect under the cowling, plus check a few other things. I was happy to see only one tiny sign of a possible oil leak under the cowling - there was just a hint of a possible oil leak somewhere in the vicinity of the fuel pump. I couldn’t get a clear indication of where this tiny bit of oil might be coming from. I’ll keep an eye on that. This is a big improvement from last year, when there was oil coming from several different places.
I replaced the removable connector for the #1 Cylinder Heat Temperature (CHT) probe with a butt splice, as that CHT had been reading too low, and there was visible corrosion in the connector. That CHT was right in line with #2 and #3 when I flew the next day, so it looks like this was a good fix. #4 CHT has also been reading low for some time, so I need to look for something amiss in its wiring next time I have the cowling off.
I was dismayed to see that the right fuel tank once again had blue fuel stain at the lower, inboard, aft corner of the right fuel tank. I had first spied this in early 2012, but after cleaning off the blue stain it did not reappear. I kept a closer on it since then, and this is the first time I’ve found fresh stain. It looks like I’ll need to remove the tank, open it up and apply some sealant inside. I’ll acquire the items I’ll need for that task, and tackle it sometime before winter.
On Saturday I flew for an hour, intending to do some instrument approach practice at Ottawa. My previous instrument practice flights at Ottawa have always been productive, but they were very busy on Saturday. I had to orbit for a few minutes before they would accept me for one ILS approach, but they wouldn’t let me do any more. Oh well. I headed back to the south west for some sight seeing and a practice approach at Smiths Falls.