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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date:  5-2-2015
Number of Hours:  6.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Electric boost pump installation

The day started with replacing one side of the pump support bracket angle in order to ensure that the small nut plate would fit properly. There isn’t much real estate on these—only 5/8” in each direction—so placement is critical. Once the new angle was in place, I went to the grinder to match the contour of the bracket, and installed the rest of the nut plates—to include the four on the top that accept the pump attach screws. Then back to the airplane to make sure everything fit. Once I was convinced that I had a workable plan, I pulled the covers out and made the cuts to allow all of the plumbing to pass from the pump to the firewall.

Time to get out some tubing and plumb to the firewall. It is a pretty straight shot from the pump outlet up to the firewall attach point, but the plans call for the tubing to angle down from the pump and then run along the floor under the original cover until turning up in a 90 degree angle to hit the firewall fitting. Due to the placement of the fitting for the firewall pass-through (a previous post discusses the use of a stiffener called out in the plans, but not used in my particular application) the bend must occur as close to the fitting as possible, and the geometry of my tubing bender makes this challenging. The primary issue is that once the tubing is bent, the flare fitting ferrule won’t slide down far enough to get the flaring tool on. It’s actually pretty surprising that the bend distorts the tubing just enough, even an inch or so away from the bend, that prevents the ferrule from sliding past.

In the end, I had to make a second attempt as my first didn’t get turned in time to clear the floor, but my second try worked fine. With the covers in place for a test fit, I only have to plumb from the fuel selector to the pump filter and I will have my fuel system plumbing complete.
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Brackets in place, ready for plumbing

Brackets in place, ready for plumbing

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Cover fits, so far, so good...

Cover fits, so far, so good...

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Cutting more holes in metal...

Cutting more holes in metal...

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