Fuel Vent lines

I'm trying to figure how to get the fuel vent lines up into the landing gear boxes. I anticipate the precise shape shown in the plans isn't needed but I suspect the height is important.

I considered feeding the tube in and bending it at the top then straightening it again on the way down (does that make sense?) But that would involve bending and unbending which seems highly undesirable with aluminium tubing.

I could fold something about double the length and try to feed it in through the lightening holes but that would make it much narrower than shown on the plans.

I'm a bit stumped on this one. I'll go and look at some RV8 websites but I'ld appreciate any wisdom from this forum.

Ken Stanton
RV8 QB

One method

I also spent a lot of time thinking (too much, like normal ) about this instead of doing it. What I ended up doing was using a piece of scrap (read that as a piece I'd previously screwed up) 1/4" tubing to make a mock-up of the bends lengths (marked w/ a felt tip marker).

I could bend this mock up all I wanted to get what I needed; then use it as a pattern for the final tubing. It worked well and generally I only had minor adjustments for the final fit.

I used that same piece of tubing for all my tubing runs, regardless of size. Its been bent a zillion times and, while not 'flight safe', it has a place in my toolbox.

BTW, a set of crow's foot wrenches on the end of a 14" socket extension made tightening the fitting easier too!

H

kens_cockpit said:

I could fold something about double the length and try to feed it in through the lightening holes but that would make it much narrower than shown on the plans.

Click to expand...

That's how I did mine; I tightened up the curve radius at the top and fed it in through the lower lightening holes... I don't think having it narrower than what the plans show matters at all, from what I can see you just need the height. From reading the drawings I was pretty apprehensive about tackling those gear tower vent lines, but they turned out to be a fairly easy task.