I’ve been helping John Sannizzaro with his fuel tanks, so I’m not too worried about the process. In fact, I’m looking forward to something that doesn’t require very much priming. I’m really learning to hate that stuff.

The only question in my mind was whether to follow Vans’ instructions for fitting the tank to the Z-brackets, or to use the modified method that Dan Checkoway details in his website. I decided to go with the modified method; I don’t like the idea of elongating holes in the tank baffles to make them fit, and if some alignment problem crops up in the modified method before drilling any holes, I can always go back to the plans method.

Per Dan’s method, I clecoed the right tank together. All the cautions mentioned about fitting leading edge ribs apply to the tank ribs – even more so, since both the tank skins and ribs are formed from thicker material. That makes the hole alignment process more difficult. As with the leading edge ribs, spending some time smoothing the nose of each tank rib and making sure the flanges are 90 degrees to the rib will help the fitting process.

Here’s the right tank clecoed together.