Scott's RV-14 Build

Fuel Tanks

I've spent the past couple days prepping my garage to work on the wings. I've fabricated all the smaller components that go in the wings and needed to transition to the actual wings. Easier said than done. The first task was creating a flat table to put the wings on. There's stuff that simply can't be done with the 2 wings next to each other and oriented vertically in the cradle. I repurposed an old table by reinforcing it, adding wheels so I can roll it around and covering it with a thrift store comforter for padding. Then I had to rearrange my garage so mama could still get her car inside with a wing on the table. Those tasks completed I needed help to remove the fuel tanks for pressure testing and fuel sensor installation. Definitely a 2-man job. The tanks come completed, pressure tested and mounted but Van's warns to pull them and re-test them. WAY easier to fix leaks now vs later. Plus, it's also easier to install the fuel sensor stuff that way. So, another RV-14 building buddy and fellow SWA pilot, Craig, came over. The 2 of us could easily move the individual wings from the cradle to the table. This gave us access to the many screws holding on the tanks that were otherwise blocked by the adjacent wing. There's 21 AN3 bolts and 78 #8 machine screws attaching each tank to the wing. The tanks are quite light when empty but with 25 gallons of avgas will weigh around 175 pounds. Craig's extensive maintenance background was a real help on several of the screws that had been torqued down excessively by the QB builders. Stripping a Philips screw head would've caused serious pain, but he had a couple of specialty tools I'd never seen before that made short work of them. We got both tanks off in short order with no damage so now I can move forward on them. I really appreciated Craig's help.

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