Peeled blue plastic, dimpled ribs and skin for right leading edge. Scotch-brited and used spot sprayer to spray Akzo-Nobel primer on inner skin and ribs.
Right leading edge ready for riveting.
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While waiting for the new cork gaskets and K1000-3 platenuts, I moved the tanks off my worktable and replaced them with the leading edges. Since they’re built off-wing, I can work on them. They’ve been match-drilled and deburred, next comes dimpling. My dimple table hasn’t been used in many many months, so it needed a little cleaning. I’ll (hopefully) dimple both leading edge skins tomorrow morning, and peel off the plastic along the rivet holes. Well, that stinks. After patching the leak in the inboard end of the tank, I was sure that my balloon would hold air. And it did… …for a couple of hours. I left it inflated with no obvious signs of trouble after watching for 30 minutes or so. When I returned about two hours later, the balloon was a sad sack of red plastic, hanging limply off the vent tube. After airing up the balloon again, I sprayed with detergent to no avail. Today I picked up a mechanics stethoscope from Harbor Freight in an effort to localize any hissing. On Tuesday or Wed I should be getting some stainless steel cap allen-head screws to use on the access panel so I won’t keep stripping the phillips-head screws, as well as some Permatex 80017 Aviation Form-A-Gasket #3 Sealant. Then I’ll set a few hours aside and really go at it. Hopefully I won’t have quite as much trouble with the other tank! I spent a few hours after that cleaning out the hangar and generally organizing all the stuff. It’s been a few years, and the place really needed a good cleaning! There’s probably another 2-3 hours yet to do, but that can wait til later. Need to get stuff I’ve screwed up over the past couple weeks: 3 cork gaskets @$4.70 ea. (Van’s) …I sacrificed one Sunday + a couple extra just in case 3 K1000-3 platenuts (Van’s) $.50 ea …seem to be missing one for the z-bracket on a tank Well, I decided to do the only thing that was really right. I pried off the access panel to the inboard end of the tank (damn that proseal sticks tight!), inserted a King Dollar mirror, shined in a bright light, and prosealed the hell out of the joint where the leak was! I’ll let that dry for a day or two, order another cork gasket from Van$ (and probably some more brass screws also) and reassemble. Since that pinhole leak was the only one I found, I think we may be leak-free… Went in on Monday to check how well our patch would hold. Applied the air nozzle, and this time, the balloon filled! yay! But wait a minute…after 10 minutes or so (was it my imagination) the balloon had gotten smaller…No! I put an ear to the inside rib (site of the problem Sunday) and could definitely hear a pinhole leak. I squirted soap suds all over, but apparently the leak was too small for me to notice any suds activity. I spent 15 minutes trying to identify the source, but couldn’t. Finally, I sat the tank on end and filled the inboard web with soapy water. Voila! There it was! A pinhole leak in the proseal patch, about 1/4 inch into the flange. I loosened the bolts that were holding the access plate to the rib (the proseal still held it like epoxy), as I knew it’d be best to fix it from the inside… Crap. |
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