Fuel tank woes

[pinerunner]

Just an update on my M20E. I finished the sealing, and passed my annual inspection, and got back in the air. After a week I noticed a slow seep in a different location than I had sealed. I also spotted seeps around a couple rivets in the other wing. I'm OK for now but I'm planning a complete strip and reseal on both wings. Depending on my mechanic's discretion this would include drilling out any loose rivets and re-riveting them. After my initial adventures I feel pretty good about resealing the access panels. Finding the leak was the harder part for me and the tough part was actually seeing the bubbles. In that sense I'm thinking a complete strip will be easier and then the reseal will be on fresh clean metal. I'm very comfortable now removing and resealing the access panels; I got no leaks around them.

Setting up improved cameras, mirrors, lights, etc. to actually see the bubbles when using Maxwell's (he says it's from someone else) method might have made the difference for me actually finding all the leaks. A dedicated hobbyist might come up with that ahead of time, playing around with inspecting the inside of old boxes. I may have been a bit shy when pulling the vacuum at first too. I came away feeling that a really big leak would have been pretty easy using the "vacuum bubble" method. 

I'll create a post about my next adventure. I'm going after my instrument rating now since I'm half way there.