I had a leak in my Andair fuel selector that I discovered back in the winter of 2002 just before my first flight.

 I have a three position fuel selector -- right, left, center. After some taxi testing, I left the plane with the fuel selector in the center position with a full header tank (I have no transfer system. I just feed directly from each tank.) When I returned a week later, 8 gallons of fuel were missing from the header, and there was no stain under the plane. It didn't take too much searching to find them. They were in the right wing tank.

I removed the selector valve and checked for a leak path. In the center position, there was a slow leak path to the right side. If the header was not a couple of feet higher than the wing tanks, I would not have discovered this problem. I exchanged the valve for a new one. That only took about 2 months, but that's another story...

When I received the new valve, I checked it for leaks before I installed it. If you haven't already installed your valve, I recommend you do the same. You don't want to be sucking air if you run a tank dry.

Mike Reinath
LNC2 360 at 730 hrs TT
San Jose, CA (RHV)