Jabiru J450 Constructors Manual
Pre-Paint>Wings>Fit fuel tank filler body
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
159 of 343
Cut the opening
Now we can drill through the outer surface of the wing with a hole saw, clean away excess
filler and then drill a slightly smaller hole into the wing tank.
During cutting care must be taken to prevent any drilling waste from falling into the tank.
If you have a compressor and an air line with a variable flow valve you could place a line into
the tank through one of the wing root fittings and
very slightly
pressurise the tank, but be
careful to only use a small amount of pressure – too much pressure may rupture the tank!
Otherwise you could have someone hold a strong vacuum cleaner nozzle near the hole saw
while you are drilling, but whatever you do make sure that
no
waste falls into the tank.
Drill a 66 - 68mm hole into the upper wing surface
only
, and
not
into the fuel tank. Hold the
drill at right angles to the wing surface and very gently drill until you can see darkness at the
bottom of the cut (as indicated in the yellow circles in the photo above right) this will mean
that you have reached the gaps in the expandable filler between the upper wing surface and
the fuel tank.
Lever out the cut out piece and carefully grind away all of the filler until you reach the top of
the wing tank, then check that the top of the tank is flat and drill a 54mm hole into the tank,
taking care not to drop anything into the tank. If the tank drops away at the front then it has
moved back slightly during wing construction and you must move the hole back until you can
drill through a level part of the top of the tank.
In these photos, taken in our factory, the tank has been slightly pressurised so that all waste is
blown away from any opening, but a vacuum cleaner hose held close to the surface being cut
could achieve much the same result. Alternately you could invert the wing and drill up.