Okay, first thing is first. I’ve been slacking on keeping up with my posts, and tonight I find myself several posts behind. I’m tired, so they are likely to be sparse on the details. Hopefully I’ll update them more thoroughly this week.

In other news of my slacking, I’ve not been doing a good job taking pictures during my recent sessions. I blame this on using my phone to play music in the hangar.

In this session I set out to leak test my two tanks. Mike Rollison lent me the manometer shown below. The leak test kit is courtesy of Mike Bullock. Man, KDMW is great for pilfering and borrowing tools for free!

The setup is simple. Connect the manometer to the fuel intake and close everything else up. Then pump air into the tank via the stem valve connected at the fuel drain. I used 4 inches as recommend by Van’s.        

Well, wouldn’t you know it. The first tank leaks in two spots along the baffle. This is the tank that I replaced the baffle during the z-bracket disaster of 2014. 

Thankfully, the second tank was rock solid. I left the hangar with 3.5 inches of water, and when I returned half an hour later…

There was more than 4.5 inches! The temperature was going up rather steadily with the mid-day sun. Its clear this tank has no leaks. 

This weekend was dedicated to finishing up the fuel tanks… finally! We’ve had a lot of snow in the Maryland area lately, but luckily my hangar faces southwest so I get a constant stream of sun that melts the ice and keeps my hangar doors working well.

I forgot to presoak the capacitive fuel sender wires to the vent line! I can’t believe I overlooked this. What is more annoying is that I have marked it as complete.

I had a bit of a gouge from the circle cutter in the side of the fuel tank. I needed to sand it down.

Here is the end result.

Next it was time to setup for working with proseal. 

I cut the bottom of a standard dixie cup to mix proseal. 

Then it was time to seal the capacitive fuel sensor wire to the vent line. I used copious amounts of proseal.

While waiting for this to dry, I secured the access panel for the other tank.

After this I set about installing the four other access plates on the other tank.

At this point, I forgot to take anymore pictures. Pretty standard stuff regardless. Each access plate is prosealed and attached with close-end pop rivets.

I wanted to be sure I had removed all of the rivets from the tank, so I busted out my cheap Chinese borescope and checked every compartment. I found the last two rivet heads tucked behind the connections for the capacitive fuel sensor.