Fuel Imbalance and Flap Failure on 182P

[mkbeast]

I’m running into a couple of issues with my 182P. First thing, I’ve noticed that the left tank is always running lower than the right one - pretty sure there”s some kind of fuel imbalance going on. Also, I had a complete flap failure recently - no flaps at all when I was approaching the airport, which was a bit of a scare.

Has anyone else dealt with these kinds of problems? Any tips on tracking down the fuel issue or getting an idea of how much a flap motor repair might set me back?

 

[Marcel Martineau]

My 182 does the same thing. It appears that it is a normal situation. It is only critical when the remaining fuel is low. One has to balance the fuel like land by selecting the fullest tank.

 

[Frank]

Yes on the 182 the excess fuel is returned to the right wing during flight so you will always have this. Like Marcel mentioned above, it is rarely a problem. If it bothers you just manually switch to right tank only flow for awhile and let it draw down the right tank for a while then switch back to both.
This from the 182T and says it pumps the fuel to the selected tank but in every 182 I have flown when both tanks are selected the majority of the return fuel goes to the right tank


As far as the flap failure, it is a pretty simple system. So should be fairly easy to troubleshoot. When this has happened to me in other Cessna‘s, it’s either a blown circuit, or faulty switch contacts, but there are a couple of other failure points. You’ll wanna check..