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Best Tank Assembly Order

WingsOnWheels

Well Known Member
I'm just about ready to put the ribs and skin together for my first tank and would like some input. Is there a best order to sealing and riveting the ribs? Regardless, i plan to do the inboard rib last to give the best access for the vent line. Is it best to work from the center out?

I have already done the stiffeners and access panel doubler...

FP15022010A00015.jpg

FP15022010A00016.jpg


The fitting will get more sealant at final assembly. The fitting spacer is under the nut on the inside.

Thanks,
 
That's the way I did mine

Take your time with it and have lots of small cloth cut-up squares available for wiping up excess proseal and cleaning with MEK. If you need any photos, here are some of mine: http://picasaweb.google.com/bakerfamilyenator/FuelTanks#. I have many more if you like.

Have you done a search on sealing fuel tanks? Rick Galati's posts and answers were a great help to me as to determining the order and how to's of working with proseal, as well as others. You might consider removing the cork gasket around the fuel sender, if you haven't seen the posts about that.

I also put together some notes for my process and can email them to you if you would like. Good Luck!:)
 
At this point, three basic assembly steps will get you there.

#1. Fay and filet seal ALL internal ribs, 100% cleco. Rivet at your convenience. If it takes you two or three days to complete all riveting...so what? You've got plenty of time. See detail photos in the link. Notice how the ribs can be installed in such a way as to avoid smearing (thus displacing and encouraging undesirable voids) in the fay sealed surfaces:

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=7602

#2. Fay and filet seal the inboard and outboard ribs to the fuel tank assembly. 100% cleco. Rivet at your convenience.

Before you install the rear baffle, make certain you encapsulated all the internal shop rivet heads. Despite some builders who may challenge its usefulness, this well documented step is called out in several publications. If in doubt, do the research. Remember: This will be your last chance to encapsulate.

Finally,

#3. Apply sealer and install the rear baffle. Pay particular attention to how you seal that rear baffle into place. Many builders seem to have trouble here. Understand that when you insert the baffle you want to have a sort of filet dam of sealer for the baffle to rest against along its entire length, top and bottom. Corners also seem to give many builders problems. Be sure the corners are adequately sealed. 100% cleco/clamp the work. Squeeze/shoot all the remaining rivets at your convenience.

It is not hard to do any of these things. Careful attention to the little details will insure your fuel tanks will be built leak proof and trouble free.

Have fun.
 
As an addendum to Rick's procedures, which a lot of builders have used with success, I would add the following: when I did my ribs, the entire assembly was clecoed together and I would remove one rib, proseal it back in place, and then rivet it. I preferred that because it insured I set the rivets 'wet' and riveting also drove a little more proseal out between the skin and ribs. I'd mix enough proseal to do a couple of ribs and encapsulated the shop heads before proceeding to the next pair. Doing it in small amounts keeps you from rushing, which inevitably leads to mistakes and proseal getting everywhere.

Encapsulate the rivet manufactured heads on the rear baffle. Yes, they're sealed but I wouldn't trust to that. Also, it's pretty common for the proseal between the skins and rear baffle to spread the skins slightly, causing a slight misfit when the tanks are attached to the spar. The RVator had an article where a builder came up with a bending tool to adjust the skin behind the baffle. What I did instead was lay some saran wrap over the spar and clecoed the tank to the spar until the proseal set. As a caveat, another builder tried this and reported that the proseal stuck to the saran wrap and I have no idea why we had different results. However, you could substitute some of the thin plastic used in fiberglassing; I'm reasonably sure proseal won't stick to it. Anyway, after the proseal set, I did the final rivet lines and my skins were snug to the spar.
 
Thank you very much for all the advice. I'm going to finish prepping my ribs tonight and put the filler and drain flanges in. Tomorrow I will get started with the ribs.

Thanks,
 
One more thing: From what I have read, the -7 has a doubler on the inside of the end rib behind the tank attach angle. My -6 plans don't have this doubler and I am wondering if it would be worthwhile to add it.
 
I made .032 doublers for the nose of both end ribs (per tank) just to get a better fit and seal. Easy to do and the weight is negligible.
 
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