“No bird ever flew nonstop from New York to Tokyo, or raced 15 miles high at triple the speed of sound.                                                                                                   
  Birds do something else.   They do not conquer the air; they romance it..”


Peter Garrison

Jur's RV7 Aircraft Factory
3497 hours
and counting

 Some days ago I reworked the gascolator brackets and lowered them to enable a more straight pass through the center of the forward wing attach brackets.

That means that my fuel line coming from the fuselage did not fit anymore and had to be remade. Here are some photo's about that process.

Started of by measuring the required length of tube.

 Then I made the initial bend on the inside of the fuselage. There is a connection joint in the middle so I don't have to worry about a long one piece funky piece of tube. I had initially planned for fuel filters in that location but as I have gascolators now in the wing tips. This has become overkill and I removed the filters.

 It always looks easy where to bend and how much until you remove the tube from the assembly and have it in your hand. What I like to do is draw small markings on the tube that indicate the place to bend and the top of the bend orientation wise. In the image below the T on the tube. The top of the T indicates the length, the horizontal part marks where the top of the tube should be after the bend.

 In the end, I ended up with this funny looking fuel tube.

 Here you can see it installed. Fortunatly these things are rather flexible and you can easily make small modifications after the bending to get everything aligned. 

 If the flare and nipple are not aligned, it's not easy to put the blue collar on and you have an increased risk of fuel leaks. That's a no no !
In the image below, it works out fine. A tiny little more pressure to the inside before screwing it on will make for a perfect fit.

 

 Here is an overview picture of the inside portion of the fuel line from the fuselage wing root to the fuel selector.

 On the outside, you can now notice the bending down towards the gascolator. This section was almost level before.

 On the other side of the gascolator, I inserted a 1 inch grommet in the fuel tank support angle and a piece of test tube which shows the tube will now perfectly fit on the gascolator and only will have a single 90° bend outwards directly to the fuel tank front where the fuel pickup tube exit point is installed.

 Then I repeasted the same work on the pilot side.
Innerconnection made.

After a bit of tweaking and rebending this will fit nice as well.

 and here is how it looks on the pilot side.

 And the funky turn on the inside. The line comes out a little wider than normal but my bender doesn't allow me more sharp bending and I prefer not to mark or disturb the shape of the tube.

 View from the pilot side of the inner fuel line.