Wing - Right Fuel Tank

2004-08-29 - Preparing the right fuel tank (Final prep). (8.0 Hrs).

Assembled and wired the capacitive senders. Cut the holes for the fuel vent and capacitive sender. Cut and flared the fuel vent tubing. Dimpled the tank skin and the ribs. Roughed-up all of the parts so ProSeal will adhere better.

I decided to drill the holes for the vent tube, so I looked at the plans and drilled a hole in the first rib in the pile. Oops, this is an end rib, which does not get a hole. Also, the other ribs come pre-drilled. This is not going to be a good day.
Drilled the holes for the vent and the capacitive senders. Plus I filed down the big washers. When I got done making the washer real smooth, I realized that they really want to be roughed-up a little for better adhesion of the ProSeal. I have a nice cross-cut file that makes this nice and rough.
Precision measuring and cutting of the fuel vent tube.
Marking the edge of the capacitive sender for exactly 3/16" separation from the stiffeners.
These came out nice.
Capacitive sender wires with lugs crimped and soldered. Here's something that you don't see often. Van gave me two extra spacers, and some extra wire. I'm surprised after he shorted me about an-inch on the cheap ass polypropylene tubing.

The small piece in the middle with two holes is the cover that I made to go over the tooling hole in the outboard rib. This is probably overkill.

Error

Dang! And this is in the top skin, right in the middle. I'm not sure what happened. I think I didn't push the dimple punch down all the way. This was the first rivet after changing from punch on top to punch on the bottom, so I could do the forward holes. I drilled this out to #30, but the hole is much bigger than a #30 rivet. The only thing that I have that is big enough to completely fill this hole is a 3/16" non-countersink pop rivet.

This wheel that I got from Wal-Mart really puts the rough into aluminum.
The skins are all roughed-up. I'm ready for ProSeal, but I am exhausted. Maybe tomorrow.