New tank attach brackets F-863

04 Sep 2004 New tank attach brackets F-863

The original tank brackets didn’t fit, as you may have seen in an earlier article. Not sure why, and neither was Van’s. The solution was to make some new ones, and luckily for me, Van’s sent me some material for the brackets *for free*!!!
This time, since the wings are in place, I could fabricate the part so that it would be perfect. I’ll have to use a different hole in the fuselage, since the suggested hole is too high, but that’s no problem.

Here are the brackets with my dimensions, the Van’s plan, and one of the brackets I made originally.

Here is a picture of the bracket clamped in place:

Seems pretty good. Now I need to take off the wings so I can drill out the rivet where I need to put the screw, re-install the wings to drill the pilot holes, remove the wings again to finish the holes, and then of course re-assemble everything.