Brief Description: Finish main tanks start aux tank
I decided to cut 1/2" off the short strap and re-drill the bolt hole to allow more room for the tension strap. My main concern with doing that was to make sure I could still fit an Allen Wrench in to set the bolts. The straps were originally 3-1/4" long now they are 2-3/4". I reinstalled all the hardware and everything checks okay. I'll wait to rivet the strap flaps until after I paint them.
Next I want to fit the aux tank so I decided to remove all the skins. My final steps before riveting will be to plumb the aux tank and deburr and dimple all the holes in the skins and ribs (that should be fun!) I realized as I took off the bottom skin that I hadn't even looked at the kink for two days. I guess the grieving wasn't as long as I thought it would be!
I started working on fitting the aux tank. It seems that most builders are just putting one top strap on so that's what I'm doing. There isn't a whole lot of room for the aux tank from top to bottom skin. After fitting the top strap I decided to make the top and bottom straps adjustable to have more control when fitting - otherwise I'm going to spend a lot of time trying to get the top strap just right. My first fitting was too long. I'll salvage it by installing some tensioning hardware on it.
