Fuel Tank Sealing

Well today after work Dad and I thought we'd begin to tackle the job of sealing the fuel tanks. Needless to say we've been dreading this task for a while. Tank sealant isn't exactly the easiest or cleanest stuff to work with. Before we began to mix up some sealant we put the whole left tank together for a dry fit (minus the vent line) to see how everything went together and to make sure if there was enough clearance between the capacative senders and the stiffeners. Everything looked good so, Houston, we have clearance! Once we were satisfied that everything would go together smoothly we began to scuff the rivet lines with medium grit Emory cloth. We did this to promote better adhesion since the rough surface creates more surface area. After this we used Coleman lantern fuel to clean the tanks off. This stuff works pretty good, it takes up all of the oils and leaves no residue. It doesn't smell too bad either like M.E.K. or anything. After we had the skins cleaned up and our tools all sorted and prepared we started to mix the tank sealant. We used our small digital scale and measured the stuff out cup by cup. It's mixed in a 10:1 ratio and it took a couple of attempts to get comfortable with working with this stuff. It's like tar. Extremely thick tar. After mixing for a couple minutes the black hardner was mixed with the white base and we were left with a dark grey substance. We followed the tapes instruction and had the stiffener rivets taped in place (we did four stiffeners at a time) then we smeared the stuff in nice thick layers on each stiffener and set it in place. Then we backriveted them and went back over the shop heads to make sure that we had a good seal. We repeated this a few times and had all of the stiffeners in place and set. After the stiffners we put the fuel drain in place and set its six rivets. This made a mess because sealant oozes out of the holes from both sides and gets all over your squeezer. Have an old rag soaked with laquer thinner to do some quick clean up for your tools and anything else you might need. After the fuel drain we moved to the fuel filler flange and smeared a bunch of sealant on it. We put it in place and put the vent clip on the very front rivet. We got these rivets bucked and decided that's all the time we had for the RV tonight. We cleaned up all the excess sealant with a rag and some laquer thinner and are now just letting it cure! I'm glad we only did one tank tonight. It gave us a chance to get used to working with the sealant and didn't overwhelm us. In a couple of days we'll be back out to do the right side! Also, sorry no pictures tonight. We left the camera at the house.