With last week’s Boltapalooza still fresh in my mind, I did a quick once over on the wings to make sure I didn’t need to spend any additional time attaching bolts. All good.
The next task was to see about putting new fuel supply lines in—at least on the left side where I had removed the existing tubing. Using techniques that I had “perfected” the last time I did this, I ran a length of tubing through the gear weldment and out towards the tank. But how to get the flaring tool on it? I determined that if I carefully ran the tubing out until it extended above the top of the tank, I could flare it and then pull it back into the gap between the tank and the fuselage for final adjustment. The comedy of errors that followed was epic. Flare once without the nut on? Did that. Flare with everything but the fuselage gasket in place? Yep. Get everything on and then crimp the tubing? Yes… Somehow I finally got the tubing flared and attached. I left a very long section inside to trim to length when the pump arrives.
After installing the left fuel supply line, I worked on both sides to attach the forward brackets. The fuselage brackets are slotted in order to allow the tank to remain with the wing in the event of a collision (think spilling fuel here…) with an immovable object, and as such, the bolts are installed just tight enough to prevent the washer from rotating. Once this is done, the bolt is safety wired to prevent rotation. I got both sides done, but still need to do a little research to see how others have saftied the bolts.
Finally, I spend about an hour fabricating the two lines that connect fuel tank vents with the fuselage lines. Enough for one day.
