Fuel pump overflow fitting
I noticed the fuel pump overflow fitting broke a while ago. It’s just a brass plug with a hole drilled in it and a tiny copper tube soldered in. The solder joint broke at some point while I was installing it way back when. I tried fixing it yesterday by re-soldering the joint with a plumbing torch. I was down in Renton at lunchtime dropping off my airworthiness paperwork at the MIDO, so I stopped by the hangar to re-install it. In the process of wrapping the safety wire around the tubing, it started to jiggle again. Vans funky fitting is just a poor design. There isn’t enough contact between the brass and copper to make a good solder joint. The whole reason Vans created this fitting is that there isn’t much room between the engine and firewall in an RV-4. There’s plenty of room on an RV-7A. I’m going to switch to real AN fittings, eventually.
While I was at the hangar, I also wrapped the fire sleeve around the fuel flow sensor and secured it with safety wrap. Now that I know there’s no leaks, I’m comfortable covering it up. It’s not super pretty, but is functional.
