Well I was lucky, it happened just after fueling up at my home airport. As I twisted the locking tab it broken off into my hand. Huh. Maybe I had them too tight or maybe the composite material is just not up for the job. Regardless I needed to find the parts to get it fixed. Searching I found that the Van’s supplied fuel caps come from Newton (UK). They are P/N: 05-22312 and while there is a parts diagram I was not able to find a place to buy just the “NC 014” tab.
I did find that Aerosport Products now produces an aluminum version of the tabs. I chocked on the $48 cost and about fell out of my chair when shipping was $25 for two one inch tabs. I reached out and got them to reduce the shipping to $16 but still it was painful to pay $64 for two tiny tabs. But buy them I did.
Aerosport shipped them super quick and a few days later I got them installed. A couple things; the tabs came with machining marks unlike the original Fuel Caps (purchased when I built my plane). Making them look odd when installed so I disassembled and used a palm sander to give them a better matching finished. The other issue was they bound up when rotated, so I sanded off a bit of the edges to provide clearance.
The aluminum tabs look so much better so maybe it was a blessing in disguise.
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