ShortSnorter
Well Known Member
After agonizing over to wet rivet or not, sealant dispensing methods, and everyone opinions, I completed my fuel tanks back in November and the initial leak test with soapy water and balloon passed with flying colors. About a week or so ago I ran across a thread from a builder who was having issues with producing acceptable tubing flares. It was then I learned that I used the wrong flare set (automotive) when making the vent lines in for the tanks. That's when I went down another path of endless thread scouring about potential vent blockages/leakages etc. I was worried that although leak free, I may leak fuel through the improper vent fitting once the vent fitting was submerged in fuel. My curiosity couldn't take it anymore, so I decided to do another leak test with Avgas. Long story short, no leaks from the inboard rib vent fitting when submerged in fuel. Which brings me to......
While inspected each rivet in the tank for blue dye, I was scraping off bits of dry proseal from around the rivets. My heart sank when I found this:
It seems that during my wet riveting, proseal madness, I overlooked a rivet. This hole is filled with dry proseal and is leak free. It is just far enough away from the filler cap that I can not reach it. Here is a picture I tried to snap holding a mirror through the filler neck (the red in the lower left is the filler neck). The red arrow points to the pick piercing through the sealant.
Here are my initial thoughts in order of least to most invasive:
1) Do nothing other than fill the dimple completely flush with sealant and pretend like it never happened.
2) Put a blind rivet in and attempt to smoosh a big dollup of sealant on the shop head using some sort of reaching device (i.e. mirror, etc)
3) Cut an access hole in the back and put the the correct rivet in place. (This seems like overkill)
Any other ideas or suggestions? I hate to cut into a leak free tank just for the sake of one rivet.
Thanks in advance!
While inspected each rivet in the tank for blue dye, I was scraping off bits of dry proseal from around the rivets. My heart sank when I found this:
It seems that during my wet riveting, proseal madness, I overlooked a rivet. This hole is filled with dry proseal and is leak free. It is just far enough away from the filler cap that I can not reach it. Here is a picture I tried to snap holding a mirror through the filler neck (the red in the lower left is the filler neck). The red arrow points to the pick piercing through the sealant.
Here are my initial thoughts in order of least to most invasive:
1) Do nothing other than fill the dimple completely flush with sealant and pretend like it never happened.
2) Put a blind rivet in and attempt to smoosh a big dollup of sealant on the shop head using some sort of reaching device (i.e. mirror, etc)
3) Cut an access hole in the back and put the the correct rivet in place. (This seems like overkill)
Any other ideas or suggestions? I hate to cut into a leak free tank just for the sake of one rivet.
Thanks in advance!