Torquing the Aluminum fittings. Setting up for the right tank - 3 hours

One of the jobs that needs to be done is to proseal and torque the aluminum fittings. This information is a bit tough to find. Information is located throughout the Forums, Van's Website, Van's manual, the AC43.13.1b, etc. Its not easy making heads or tails of it. For example some torque values listed in the vans manual is for the AN is for the AN818 nuts that attach the soft aluminum tubing to the aluminum fittings. But that wouldn't apply to the jam nut. Of course there is a multitude of information on the forums....almost too much information and many varying torque values.

Many hours of reading and researching go into the build and are not tabulated in the build log.

Basically what it boiled down for me is that I finally found some published torque numbers for an AN924 jamnut. That will allow me to install the Aluminum fittings onto the rib. I used proseal before I sandwiched the pieces together. Then I torqued the fitting, ensuring the correct alignment of the fuel vent elbow. I used tape on the fitting to ensure no proseal entered the fitting. Once I had smoothed the proseal. I removed the tape. I did both end ribs this way.


I was ready to cleco the right fuel tank together

 Next on the agenda was to torque the aerobatic fuel pickups to the Aluminum bulkhead fittings. Again... bit of a research session to figure out what is the proper torque value. I finally settled on the Torque specs found on Van's Website for hoses with aluminum fittings.

Using the crowfoot adapter at 90degress I torqued the fittings to spec.