Its bloody cold out in the garage.  This session was pure misery.

Completing the installation of the flop tubes, fuel quantity senders, and the vent lines was the name of the game in this shop session. One tank is completely ready to go, and the other tank only needs to have the wiring for the fuel sender plates installed.  I still need to seal each of these components, but that will be relatively quick.  Once that is complete, the tanks will be ready for the baffle to be installed!  I am hoping to get the tanks completed this weekend.  I know, I say that every weekend, but this weekend the end really is in sight!

I may have made the wire to the BNC connector a little short.  It sure made for a difficult installation of the connecting nut, however I do not think there is any undue load on the wire.  I crimped and soldered both these connections.  Proseal will also be added. 

Here you can see the BNC connection.  I soldered this connection previously, but today I added two layers of heat shrink to the connection.  Solder is fairly brittle.  The heat shrink should reduce the amount of flex in the joint over time and ensure the connection lasts for years to come.  Proseal will also help in this regard once I apply it.  

My first safety wire application.

Now we come to something I don’t like.  The anti-hangup guide I have for the access plate seems to perform the exact opposite of its job.  It would appear that the flop tube is more likely to be trapped in the lower corner of the tank.  I’ve posted this problem to Van’s Airforce forums and we’ll see what the response is.

Finally, I made the other anti-hangup guides, but did not have enough time to install.  I’m going to install with some spare pop rivets and a little pro seal.  

A good close up of the potential ‘trapped’ location of the flop tube.