Fuel tank breather lines

Posted On December 15, 2018

Today’s task was to create the breather lines for the fuel tank. I’ve had the tubing and some of the tools for a while, but I needed a smaller tubing bender, which I just recently received.

Here’s what I used:

• 6061T6 TUBE 1/4″ X .049 4FT from Aircraft Spruce
• OTC 4403 tubing bender from Amazon
• Rigid 37° flaring tool from Acme Tool
• Generic pipe deburring tool like this one from Amazon
• Close quarters pipe cutter like this one from Amazon
• Elbow grease!

The flaring tool is a bit specialized; 37° flares are needed for AN fittings, whereas I think 45° is more common for other style fittings. The tubing bender is nothing special, but I needed a 1/2″ bend radius, whereas the generic tool you’d find at Lowes is more like 1″, too big.

As you can see in the pictures, the results came out pretty good using the right tools… however it’s a bit annoying to have to buy $150 worth of specialized tools to form $10 worth of aluminum tubing. Guess I’ll need to come up with ideas for things I can make with the flaring and bending tools and sell on Etsy! 😬

For the U-shaped part that goes inside the fuel tank, I used a piece of tubing 4.5″ long. For the tube that goes down from the tank, I used a piece 210cm long as per the instructions.

Be sure to put the fittings on the tube before you bend and flare it!