Well, I got all prepped and studied up for doing section 20. I got the tanks out of their containers & unwrapped them and was pleasantly surprised that section 20 was completed by the factory. One more down w/o any effort!
Section 21 is all about prepping the tanks and sealing them up. I inspected the insides with a video scope and found them to be spotless. There were no 'hanging chads' of sealant, any debris to be found, and all of the specified internal passages were open.
The book says to fill each tank with 3 or so gal of 100LL and throughly rinse the insides, including turning the tanks upside down. I looked at the 4 big open inspection plates and decided that it would be a good idea to put the plates on, otherwise we (Lada & I) were going to just pour all that avgas all over the garage. There are two fuel pickups (6D) and two vent lines (4D), but the kit only included 1 each of the end caps, so fuel did make a bit of a mess. Lada took the brunt of the spill but didn't complain because she has a curious appreciation for the smell of oil & gas and stuff.
I did try to stem the mess by hand threading the fuel vent lines into their ports. The L tank was straightforward, but the right side wouldn't thread. I gently applied some torque w/ a wrench and promptly sheared the first couple of threads inside the coupling in the bottom of the tank. I did some research and verified that it's a 1/8" NPT which is readily available at Harbor Freight. I'll pick up a tap in a couple of days and will very gently chase the threads and try again.
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