Fuel leak, Wheel pants

TLDR

• Tried to address the fuel leak but still leaking :-(
• Installed nose wheel pant

Details

Fuel Leak

I tried to tighten the leak connection on the naviflow unit to stop the leak, unfortunately it did not work. When boost pump + main pumps are on, fuel slowly weeps out of the inboard side of the banjo bolt on the naviflow.

Next Step

I have a bunch of new crush washer on order. And I also ordered something called dowty seal, which is rubber gasket wrapped in aluminum shell. Since my fuel leak only happens when there is fuel pressure and it’s super slow, whatever is not sealing on the banjo bolt must be microscopically small. From my research, the rubber gasket based dowty seal has a better chance to seal the imperfection. I will give it a try once I receive them.

Nose Wheel Pant

Since I couldn’t do much about the fuel hose today, I worked on intsalling the nose wheel pant. The only trick is aligning it at the right position to drill the holes for the 4 rivnuts (2 on each side).

The 2 front ones are easy: the factor made pilot holes on the wheel pant, so I just drilled them. No measurement needed and no modification needed.

Then I had to figure out where the rear 2 holes needed to be drilled.

I first aligned the wheel pant’s front piece and rear piece together and drilled 4 small holes so they can be put together by clecos.

Then I grabbed 2 4mm rivets, and cut short the stem part. I wanted to use them as a guide to help me find the rear holes. Once the stems are cut, I jammed the rivets into the M5 rivnut holes. This way, when I put on the wheel pant I will be able to feel where the wheel pant touches the rivnut hole, and also the rivet should leave an impression on the back of the wheel pant.

And indeed, with the modified rivets it was easy to align the wheel pant and push it towards the rivet to figure out the drill spot. I then drilled small pilot holes on both sides.

Then I just enlarged the hole and installed 4 M5 screws to hold the wheel pant in place. I am not quite done yet. Still need to drill a bunch of holes along the seam between front/back wheel pant parts so they can join with each other with rivnuts. But the hard part is done, so I will just keep it at this point until I have time to work on them. For the purpose of weight and balance, it’s now able to stay on the airplane to get an accurate W&G report.