plbarrett2004
Active Member
About a month ago, I made a major mistake on the fuel tanks. Despite clearly labeling all of the z-brackets and the tanks themselves, I installed the left z-brackets on the right tank, and vice versa. I was pretty mortified when I realized what I had done. After consulting Van's, I wasn't that upset anymore. I decided to allow the sealant to set before drilling out the pop rivets. With the sealant set, the pop rivets should be easy to fish out from inside the tank.
Well today I got around to doing just that. The pop-rivets were extremely easy to drill out. Snap the heads off with the punch and then pop the remainder into the tank. But here's where things got difficult. After a good hour and a half of shaking the tanks, using telescoping magnets and fishing with a ball of tape I was able to retrieve only 17 of the 50 pop rivets in the tank. They are not even rattling around anymore. I even tried using a magnet on the outside of the tank to move them around to no avail.
So my question is this. What do I do now? Should I just leave them in there... is there another method to remove them that I haven't thought of, or do I need to remove the whole baffle? I'm kind of inclined to just leave them there... but that might be my frustration talking.
Appreciate the advice in advance!
Well today I got around to doing just that. The pop-rivets were extremely easy to drill out. Snap the heads off with the punch and then pop the remainder into the tank. But here's where things got difficult. After a good hour and a half of shaking the tanks, using telescoping magnets and fishing with a ball of tape I was able to retrieve only 17 of the 50 pop rivets in the tank. They are not even rattling around anymore. I even tried using a magnet on the outside of the tank to move them around to no avail.
So my question is this. What do I do now? Should I just leave them in there... is there another method to remove them that I haven't thought of, or do I need to remove the whole baffle? I'm kind of inclined to just leave them there... but that might be my frustration talking.
Appreciate the advice in advance!