1.5 hours.
Testing the tanks. I made capped lines for the vent lines by squeezing the end of a section of 1/4″ tubing in the hand seamer with a regular AN fitting on the other to connect to the vent line nipple. Got to use my new tube bender, cutter and flare tool. Sixty bucks off eBay. Then I put a balloon in an AN fitting and that over the fuel line fitting with some vaseline on the thread, for a decent seal without ripping the balloon. Then forced air in the fuel drains to inflate the balloons and gaffer tape over those holes before the air ran out and the balloons deflated. I then measured 2 marks on each balloon, wrote down the distances between them, and the time. If the balloons stay inflated over the course of the day, and the distance between the marks stays roughly the same but doesn’t decrease overall, then my tanks are sealed. I’m expecting those distances to fluctuate with temperature somewhat, but a leak should make itself evident within 48 hours.
Meanwhile, I’m waiting for FedEx, who is theoretically showing up with my wingtip light kit and strobe kit at about 1:30. I’ve gotten the wingtips down out of the rafters, so I’m thinking about glassing in the Archer antenna and making the doubler strips. I suppose I could just do CS4-4 rivets, but I’m not into drilling those out eveyr time I need to change a landing light bulb or troubleshoot the VOR antenna. Either way, I need to do the wingtip ribs.
I’m also trying to decide whether or not to buy the Trio avionics autopilot now so I can install it in the wing and be done with it. OTOH, if I don’t close the wing skins until much later, I can worry about it then.
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