After "practicing" on several feet of 3/8" aluminum tubing during my last session, I decided to order some new fuel line and research options for routing the line through the gear mount and fuselage side without damaging it. In the end, the simplest ideas are sometimes the best, and that's what I decided to go with. Basically, all I did was to take some vinyl tubing I had and cut two small pieces to act as bushings as I fed the tubing through the tight spots.
The pictures show the plan better than I can explain it, and I had the fuel lines installed in a matter of minutes. The hardest part? Installing the rubber grommets in the gear mounts after the lines were in place--that took about 10 minutes per side to coax into place but in the end the job was done. I left ample amounts of tubing on either side to trim and bend into the final shape for attaching to the fuel selector and tank.
Once that job was done, I decided to clean up the fuel selector attach plate and paint it with the interior paint that I purchased from Aircraft Spruce. A little sanding and one additional coat of primer and I left it for a couple of hours to attend to other business.
