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.