My friend Mike Cencula came back over tonight to do some additional fuel tank work. The goal was to do 3 more interior ribs. The fuel tanks have 7 ribs each, 5 of which go together easier with a 2 man effort, one guy shooting the rivet and the other bucking. We did 3 ribs tuesday night so we had 7 left. Well we fell into our routine and were cranking them out when catastrophe struck on the last rib in the left fuel tank. I inadvertently grabed the right tank rib and we riveted into the left. It actually fit pretty good except for the one hole that just didn't line up well. - duh! So we got out the drill and Mike expertly drilled the heads and we plucked out 34 rivets (remember it was totally ProSealed). It wasn't as disastrous out I thought it would be. Mike is awesome at drilling out rivets and we made relatively quick work of it. I am soooo glad we caught it before the ProSeal cured! Anyway, with that setback behind us we pressed on and on and on and on. We actually got all the interior ribs installed (7 or 8 if you count the messed up one) in one long session. I am so thankful for Mike's help and I look forward to returning the favor in the next few weeks when we start on his tanks. Now I can work on putting in the internals such as, capacitance probes, associated wires, vent line, and return line. I am waiting on a Vans order for some of my return line parts, but I can get most of the work done. Once everything is in place and triple checked I can close up the tank. This will be done solo with a pneumatic squeezer.
Thanks again Mike!!!
Mike "the man" Cencula
The fun part - really. Its the easy part compared to prep and cleanup.
