We're getting so close to being done with the tanks I can smell it! Or maybe that's just the proseal, acetone and MEK. Anyway, whatever it is we're almost done. Tonight we soldered in the connectors for the capacitive fuel sensors and rough-installed the Stewart Warner float fuel senders. Bending the float arms was a little trickier than I imagined it would be, because the floats have to clear both the upper stiffener and the vent line-- there isn't much more space there than the width of the float itself. Additionally, on the R tank, where the float attaches to the rod there is a 'barb' on the rod that could potentially catch on a rivet, sticking the float in the "up" position. This would be bad for obvious reasons, so I was forced to put an extra "Z" bend in the rod on the right side to ensure it would stay clear. The extra bend changes the geometry slightly between the up and down positions, so I may try and replicate that bend so both sides behave the exact same way. For now, here is the position and measured resistances for both floats in the full and empty positions.
R tank empty - 246.4 ohms
R tank full - 30.4 ohms
L tank empty - 256.5 ohms See Update 5/3/2015
L tank full - 56.4 ohms See Update 5/3/2015
Seems ok to me, except the geometry in L tank (without the exta Z-bend) doesn't allow the sensor to swing all the way to the "full" position, resulting in a slightly higher resistance (56.4 ohm) than the desired 30-ohm. The R side with the extra Z-bend came out perfectly, so I'm thinking we'll be adding that same bend to the L side.
Otherwise, once that was done we got out my new favorite tool, the EZ-Burr, and started deburring the wing ribs for the bottom skins. Got all the way through the R wing!
Tomorrow we'll probably deburr the L wing and get everything ready for baffle installation... looking like Saturday will be the last day we see the inside of these tanks!
