Neville's Bearhawk

Oil and brake lines, engine pressure sensors.

Oil lines

I collected my oil and brake lines from the supplier this morning. They look good, and the 90 and 150 degree fittings are on swivels which is excellent as it eliminates any potential miss-alignment. They all appear to fit well with a test fitting and I’ve added a couple of Adel clamps to fix the oil hoses in position to the engine mounts. I need to order some smaller #8 clamps to fit the hoses better.

There appears to just be sufficient clearance from the top hose fitting and the engine cowl, of about 1/4 inch. However both the engine mount that the oil filter is attached to, and the engine cowling should move in unison so this should be sufficient.

Brake lines

The brake lines also fit well and solved an issue that I had been mulling over - how to mount the firewall bulkhead penetration in a simple fashion. This problem solved itself, and I ran a 3003 line up the inside of the firewall to the reservoir.

Fuel & Oil pressure sensors

I’ve already assembled the pressure sensors on the Vans kit mounting block but held off attaching them to the firewall until I had the larger items in place. This evening I’ve positioned them on the top left side of the firewall and the hoses seem to route to their respective connections easily. I decided to change the fuel pump pressure outlet from a 45 to a 90 degree AN4 fitting so there’ll be much better clearance from the oil cooler scat tube.

The original 45 degree fitting had a pressure restriction built it, so I found a Kitplanes article that showed how to make a pressure restriction using a rivet and set to work. It worked fine after a number of attempts at keeping the rivet straight while compressing it. I then mounted the pressure sensor bracket to the top left of the firewall.

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