Good day, today I started to work on building some parts needed for the capacitance fuel sender system. The best place to start if you want to incorporate this mod into your F1 is to get a copy of the Van’s OP-7 Capacitive Fuel Quantity Sender drawing. I decided to go with this system because a few F1 owners that I have spoken to swear by it. No faults, it’s accurate and it just works. That kind of first hand experience was good enough for me. The material list below is pretty much based on the OP-7 drawing requirements with a few changes. Those items I highlighted.
Materials:
- 0.025 2024-T3 Aluminum sheet (to make 4 sender plates)
- 12 K1000-08 nutplates
- 10 feet of unshielded 18GA wire (Part # M22759/16-18-9)
- 12 AN509-8R14 Flush Head Screws
- 4 AN515-6R8 Pan Head Screws
- 6 Ring Terminal 22-16GA (ACS Part # 11-18353)
- 6-inches 1/4-inch O.D. Polypropylene tubing (Van’s Part # PT1/4ODTUBEX62)
- 2 Male BNC connectors (Steinair Part # SA-1010M)
- 2 Bulkhead Jack BNC connectors (Steinair Part # SA-1010J)
- A piece of Delrin rod 1-inch dia. (ACS Part # 02-52001) To make spacers from.
- 2 interface modules (Red Avionics Vans Plate Converters – ACS Part # 10-07337)
- Fuel Gauge – To be connected to Garmin G3X
OP-7 drawing:
I started by making the flat plate sensors. You need 2 plates for each tank and each plate is made from 0.025 aluminum sheet. Make the flat plates in the approximate size of the T-804 fuel tank rib dimensions. There should be 5/32 inch gap from the upper surface of the plate to the inner surface of the rib flange. Likewise, there is the same 5/32 inch gap on the lower surface as well. Length is about 6 to 7 inches (see drawing below). The plates should end up with approximately 35 sq inches of plate area. To get the sizing close before I cut the aluminum, as you can see below, I started with a cardboard template.
Here is the actual sketch of the fuel sender plate that I received from Charles Kuss. If anyone knows who originated this sketch, please comment below, so I can give credit where credit is due. This helped me out so much! I’m definitely appreciative to have received this sketch.
When I was happy with my cardboard cutouts, I transcribed them on to the aluminum sheet and cut out the rough plates.
They fit not bad but will eventually need some trimming on the top and bottom to get the correct gap as per the OP-7 requirements.
That’s all I have time for today. More fuel sender work coming soon!
That’s all for today folks! Please comment. I love to hear from my readers. Thanks again for coming along for this ride, you make my work worthwhile.
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