Fuel Valve - Part 1

Note: Not suitable for use with a fuel-injected engine as the factory has found issues with it leaking at the higher pressures.

This blog covers the installation of the fuel selector. 

Fuel Selector
A Newton Consulting fuel selector was chosen because of its style of selection, which will allow operation from the seat without adjustment to belts.

Model: SPRL V1-3P-C way fuel valve with conforming selector was selected

The lift and turn selector is secure and should be easier to operate as installed with the optional locking detente to avoid accidental operation.

This model allows the left or right tank selection while opening a return to the tank as required by the Rotax. All fittings are 3/8'' lines with AN nipples.

Valve & extension kit
[right angle optional]

Face Plate
The selector was disassembled, and the parts were placed in a safe place. This is part of installing an extension kit and the extension drive. 

The plate matched the mark on the front panel and the firewall for later drilling. 

The face plate is mated to the extension drive, the 1/8'' hole for the brass drive indent pin is matched drilled and the indent pin is driven in.  All screws had a small drop of Loctite added at assembly.
  
Reassembled the selector after greasing the extension drive shaft - checked operation.

Installation

After locating the mounting position, the mounting holes were marked from the face plate when disassembled. 

The brass drive rivet provides the indent and must be re-installed after match drilling into the adapter.

Note: Mounting screws were not supplied with the kit and had to be sourced.

Drilling Mounting
Holes 3.5 mm with 38 mm hole saw for the cutout
Better done in the flat but selector type was up in the air 
while drawing the layout

Adapter mounting on the firewall
Holes 5 mm on the valve PCD & a 16 mm hole drilled with a step drill
Mounted located at the centre height of the selector in the lower panel

Safety Issue
With the adapter installed onto the firewall using cap head screws, an issue was noted. The shaft connecting the valve and extension is designed to float captive between the two devices and could slide between the screw heads and lock the assembly. 

After examining a series of options, a custom 3 mm thick washer was manufactured and fitted with counter-sunk screws. This was the safest option while maintaining the original design intent. 

Note: See comments re: this issue

The drive shafts supplied were trimmed to the correct their correct overall length, and a coupling created from a piece of 1/2'' x 0.035'' 2024-T3 was inserted into the shaft and then fixed at both ends with 1/8'' x 6.5 mm pop rivet [2 off].

Assembled extension shaft

The 3 mm washer was fixed to the firewall adapter using 3 [three] 10-32 counter-sunk screws treated with Loctite Thread Lock. 

Valve firewall

The shaft was slipped on at the firewall end with the selector reassembled to the instructions supplied. With the tube fitted to the adapter, the selector was inserted and secured using M3 x 12 stainless steel counter-sunk screws. 

Checking revealed a bind, and this required a 90 deg. The chamfer is to be incorporated on the washer at the firewall side. This traps the torque tube between the valve adaptor and the washer.

The completed assembly operated as intended.

Note: The valve and selector have to be phased - this was done by placing the valve and selector in the left-hand position and riveting the shaft to the coupling.

Comment
The operation of the valve allows easy clear selection of the required tank in flight. The valve lacks instructions and drilling templates with a range of accessories that are poorly configured, letting down an excellent product.

Doing it again, I would move the valve to the port as it may be tight for fittings between the hydraulic cylinder and the valve.

Issues
At the time of ordering, Zen-like skill was needed to navigate the Spruce site for the parts and an additional extension shaft was not ordered. Currently, there has been months of back-and-forth emails in an attempt to purchase an extension shaft from Aircraft Spruce.  

If you try to order it after an original order, it's just not possible. To do this, you have to order a complete assembly, but there are no instructions to calculate the length and not having the correct information = impossible = Catch 22.

Dilbert truly understands

Big surprise, I opened my last Spruce shipment to find a complete extension kit that I did not order - I think - cost $US 118, whereas the extension and single universal is $ US 13!

I decided to use the shaft and universal, creating two unused adapters. Also supplied with the new adapter kit are a spacer washer and screws that were not supplied with either of the two extension kits, so I can only assume that was missed previously by Spruce.

Can I explain? No chance, but as I have been waiting over a month for a reply to be supplied the extension only, I decided to just finish the drive and fight on for common sense to prevail.