Tami is in Minnesota again as her mom is back in the hospital.  She had promised me to spend all day working on sealing the left fuel tank.  Family takes priority, so I just worked on tank things that I can work on without her help.

In the right fuel tank, I put in a flop tube.  in the left fuel tank, I decided to stay with the conventional fuel pick-up called out by Vans.  I am also using capacitance fuel senders which means I will be using the "blank" inspection cover.  Therefore, the first thing I needed to do if figure out where to drill the hole for the fuel pick-up AN ELL fitting.  I had also purchased the pre-fabricated fuel pick-up from Van's (see second picture below).  To see where I stood on fuel pick-up location, I used the standard inspection cover that you would use if you were installing float sensors.

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I then installed the pre-fabricated fuel pick-up and immediately noticed a slight problem with routing of the pick-up.

I modified my nutplates from the standard kit in that I ordered sealed nutplates to eliminate all these screws as a possible leakage path from the tank.  However, the pate nuts interfered with the location of the fuel pick-up line.  The tubing was just to short to go between the skin, stiffener, and nutplate.

This obviously is not going to work with the ELL fitting in the same location as on the standard inspection cover plate.  I figured that I had to come down about an 1/8" to route the tubing under the nutplate.  So I tried to drill out the ELL fitting hole lower, however, when I test fit the ELL and the pickup tube, I didn't move the hole down far enough and I still had an interference problem with the pick-up tube and the nutplate.  Therefore, I am going to have to fabricate a new pick-up tube.

Well, now that I was committed to the hole in the inspection plate, I began to fabricate the anti-rotation bracket.  I actually cut the angle at 1 1/4" instead of the 1" called out by the plans.  Van's only gives you 2" of this angle to make two anti-rotation brackets.  Since I didn't need this on my right tank, I had some extra angle to work with so I just made the bracket a little wider than called for.

In order to properly place the anti-rotation bracket, I drilled the 9/16" hole for the ELL per Van's dimensions and then did the following to ensure correct placement and orientation since the ELL will not be able to rotate once the bracket is drilled and riveted to the inspection plate. 

• I put the ELL back into the original inspection plate (for float senders) as it has the two holes pre-punched where you would rivet the anti-rotation bracket to the inspection plate. 
• Centered the ELL fitting between the two #40 holes for the rivets to secure the anti-rotation bracket.
• Drilled #40 holes in the anti-rotation bracket.
• Removed all the hardware from the original inspection plate and installed it on the blank inspection cover plate.
• Installed the inspection plate back on the fuel tank and inboard rib.
• Installed the fuel pick-up line and oriented the fuel pick-up so that it wouldn't chafe on the nutplate or the tank stiffener.
• Tightened the ELL fitting so that it would not rotate if I bumped it and verified alignment of the fuel pick-up.
• Removed the inspection plate from the tank and put in the vise.
• Installed and clamped the anti-rotation bracket to the inspection plate and drilled out the holes between the inspection plate and anti-rotation bracket to #40.  Replace my clamps with clecoes.
• Once I checked it over and was happy with alignment, I drilled out the holes to their final size of #30 since Van's calls out using a AN470AD4-6 rivets to secure the anti-rotation bracket to the inspection plate.

Ooh NO!!!!  Getting ready to deal with nasty tank sealant again.  I will be glad when my tanks are DONE!!!

I planned on doing a lot of little tank sealing activities.  I.e.: tank drain, end rib hole plate, inspection plate fuel pick-up hardware and sealing the new fuel pick-up tube screen.

I started on the tank drain fitting.  Hopefully, I remember how to do all this.  I took a scotchbrite pad and MEK and cleaned / roughed up both surfaces to be sealed.

Ditto for the inside of the skin.  When sealing here, I made sure that each rivet was fully encapsulated and that there was space between each "blob" of sealant so any moisture would be sure to find its way to the tank drain.

I dipped each rivet in sealant and made sure that when I clecoed the tank drain flange to the skin, that I had sealant ooze out all the way around.  My theory was to make sure that I had enough sealant between the flange and skin so as to not have any leakage paths.  I had really good luck by having no leaks on the right tank.  I hope I can repeat that on the left tank.

This is a hole that has to be covered and sealed on the outer most rib on the fuel tank.  I fabricated a small plate, riveted it with two rivets and placed a big glob of tank sealant over the cover plate.

I also place sealant on the factory head side of the rib.

The fuel pick-up ELL and anti-rotation bracket.  Just make sure that you DON't rivet the anti-rotation bracket in place before you install the ELL.  It's a "cart and the horse" kind of thing. 

I placed spacer washer is on the OUTSIDE of the inspection plate.  I placed tank sealant between all the surfaces, torqued the ELL fitting and nut to 130 in-Ibs and then covered the whole assembly in tank sealant.  As with all my tank rivets, I fully encapsulated the factory head for the anti-rotation bracket (which is on the outside of the inspection plate).

This is my new fabricated fuel pick-up.  The tubing on the one Van's sent me was to short to make it around the inspection nutplates.  So I saved the AN fitting and the screen and fabricated a new length of tubing.

Underneath the tank sealant for the screen, I safety wired (.032" safety wire) the screen onto the end of the fuel pick-up tubing.  There is a #40 hole through the end of the tubing that the safety wire is run through and then twisted.  I "packed" tank sealant around the end to help secure the screen.  Looks just like the one Van's had originally sent me.

Arrrggg, this is only the beginning of sealing this tank.  Everything I touched for the next hour had sealant on it.  Hands, TV, tools, etc.  This is some messy stuff.

After I got done cleaning up my mess, I decided to get the Cherokee out and fly up to Plattsmouth (KPMV) to see how Kevin Faris is coming along on his RV-7.  He is alot closer to being ready to fly than I am.  I am really envious of his current status.  I will get there someday.  Sorry, no pictures.