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Bolting fuel tank on- best practices

flightlogic

Well Known Member
Patron
Fixed a small leak with Pro-seal. When I removed the tank, there were 21 bolts. None had washers and all were hard to remove inside the inspection holes.
In the original build, are there supposed to be washers on the AN bolts? Does anyone use Loctite? I don't want a heavy tank getting loose at any time.
Any best practices or experience appreciated.
 
Yes there should be washers under the heads. Loctite isn’t required as the nut plate thread bores are deformed slightly to provide locking. Just torque correctly and you’ll be fine.
 
I'm not an RV-9 builder but I do have the thumb drive plans. Like other RVs, the Z-shaped brackets on the back of the fuel tank should have locking plate nuts on them. These do not need Loctite since they have a locking feature. The AN3 bolts should have thin washers under the heads.

The hardware call-outs are:

K1000-3 Platenut
AN3-4A bolt
AN960-10L washer.

Dave
 
These are the screen capture of the RV8 plan, which is very similar to the RV9

The bolt call out are below
 

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Was this a QB? I'd measure the bolts, make sure you have the right ones. My QB came with bolts that were one size too long, with 3 washers under each bolt head. Make sure they didn't use bolts that were too short, and leave out the washers to try to make up for that.
 
I use a bit of acf-50 anti-corrosion on bolts or screws like this that I won't see that often. Tef-Gel is also a product that seems to also be recommended for this type of application, which I use from time to time. https://tefgel.com/
 
If concerned about loose bolts, perhaps in worn out nut plates, you can add a lock washer of your choice between the flat washer and bolt head.
 
When I fixed my leak I had my tank off and on twice...

Stubby handle ratchet and various size extensions are your friend when dealing with limited space and wires/pitot plumbing
 
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