1/2A FUEL TANK SETUP

I am in the process of building an ACE Whizard and I am at the fuel tank setup
stage. I want to be able to fill and drain the tank without disconnecting any fuel
lines. I also want to safely be able to do the Mixture Pinch Test. I want to do it without having to open up anything on the plane in order to squeeze the fuel line with my fingers, a hemostat, or a needle nose pliers. I also want to be able to kill the engine as needed. The engine is a well running “Dickybird .049 TD throttled special”. 4.5K to 17K on a good day at 5800’ ASL.

The attached rough sketch conceptually describes how I plan to do the installation. The sketch is a TOP VIEW of the fuel tank and compartment. The tank will be isolated with foam from the airframe to help alleviate fuel bubbles. https://i.servimg.com/u/f46/17/16/79/17/fuel_t13.jpg

The Output Line is clunked with a shaved down sintered bronze clunk (Du Bro) for filtering and has maximum freedom of movement for optimum fuel pickup in all or most normal flight attitudes.

The Fill/Drain line is tipped with a short piece of metal fuel tubing on the internal end. It is trapped by pre-loading it in the lower right corner of the tank with a slightly long and not so flexible piece of fuel line. This is to keep it out of the way of the Output Line clunk and allow draining the tank in one predetermined position on the ground. Nose up and to the right would work in this setup if a syringe is connected to the Fill/Drain Line to suck out the fuel. Sucking out fuel works better than shaking and the residual fuel can go in the primer bottle fore use later. I plan to use a short 4x40 or 2x56 screw for a Fuel Dot, whichever fits best.

I would appreciate any suggestions that meet my requirements with this type of tank installation. I have never used a three line fuel tank setup before and don’t want to get involved with unnecessarily disconnecting fuel lines and etc.

astronomer:

With 21 reads and no responses I'm thinking your idea may be useful to you but beyond the lengths that most of us go in fuel tank arrangements.

I use unmodified Sullivan "clunk" tanks with with great success.

I'm posting to let you know what is probably occurring re: you post.