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Before you seal/reseal your tanks

pa38112

Well Known Member
Before you seal your tanks, install your fuel senders, or repair your tanks, consider this:
8 years ago when I was repairing a leak at my fuel sender the prevailing advice was to forgo the gaskets and just seal them with pro-seal. I recently had a fuel leak that needed fixing, and decided that it would be a good idea to replace my 20 year old fuel senders - Ha!!! good luck removing a fuel sender that has been pro-sealed without destroying the cover plate, and good luck removing the cover plate without damaging the tank end baffle.
The issue is that these parts are very rigid, so you can not get a scraper under the sharp corrner where the two parts meet. Soaking them in MEK for 7 days was margionally helpful.
When re-installing the new senders and cover plate I decided to chamfer the bottom edge so that in the future I will be able to easily get a scraper between the two. I would suggest this for anyone who is installing them without the gaskets. I also did this to the repair cover plates on the back of the tank.



 
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Polygone gel to soften the sealant. And a somewhat sharp regular screwdriver to slip under the edge of the cover plate and pry it open off the end rib. Done it a couple times now. The Polygone is gunky and turns the sealant into a gel goo when you scrape it off. But it works.
 
A little carefully applied heat from a heat gun and a stiff sharp putty knife and its pretty easily removed. Klean-Strip Aircraft Paint stripper loosens up what remains for a simple clean up..
 

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I used a 6-inch thin stainless ruler I had laying around, it was easy to slip in there and "saw" around to cut the proseal.
 
I cut a cover plate loose last year, tank on the airplane. Used a strip of stainless steel firewall material with one end sharpened. No damage.
 
prevailing advice

"prevailing advice was to forgo the gaskets and just seal them with pro-seal". LoL
 
E string

Never done it, but I've seen a lot of windshields removed using a guitar "E" string. Mexico. One guy inside, one outside. Zip and they pull the windshield.
 
Hey, Larry so have I seen and done the wire trick on windshields.
But, that is gonna be one small guy inside those tanks. Ha Ha.
I just removed the end caps on my tanks. Heat and a very thin putty knife. Off they came. No gaskets just Proseal.
Art
 
Size challenged

Hey, Larry so have I seen and done the wire trick on windshields.
But, that is gonna be one small guy inside those tanks. Ha Ha.
I just removed the end caps on my tanks. Heat and a very thin putty knife. Off they came. No gaskets just Proseal.
Art

Size challanged please! Kidding. Glad you got it off. I always wanted to try the trick. Mine don't have proseal. I planned to pull them before final install and proseal them on with no gasket. One of a long list of final assembly jobs.
 
Take a look at the thread I referenced in post #4 above. One of the tools I used was a wire knife, with .020 music wire. I'd found that .015 was too thin - it broke. .032 was too thick.

Dave
 
EAA meeting program was a talk from a guy working on SR71's in Tonopah. He told the story of hiring midgets to seal inside the fuel tanks. One of the perks of the job was all they could eat at the chow hall. It wasn't long before they all got to big to fit.
I don't know if he was pulling our leg or not but he was in charge of the program.
 
A gasket scraper might be the ticket. A little sharper than the typical flat blade screwdriver.

I’ve removed one of mine 4 times now fixing a leak and I used a shard of cracked canopy (acrylic?) which I sharpened on the sander. A pallet knife also helps.
 
Any of the common paint strippers that contain methyl chloride (chloromethane) will soften and lift Proseal.

For tools, use:
1. Chip chaser. Dress the hook edge on a Scotch-Brite wheel.
2. Dental pick (work well, if you can get them cheaply).
3. Good quality fish hook attached to wooden or plastic handle, bent to shape required for access.
 
Gasket

After reading all these "great ideas", I think I'll stick to a good old gasket.

I've removed about 100 lifetimes worth of Pro-Seal out of B-1900 fuel tanks using a razor blade, skin wedges, and mirrors or a borescope to see what I was doing. The thing I found most effective was to have someone else do the work.
 
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