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New Tank Skin or oops rivet?

G

gfb

Well Known Member
While I looked away my buddy who was dimpling a tank skin made the dreaded silence... He had pounded a new hole/dimple into the leading edge of my tank skin.

Does this look like something I can fix or am I looking at a new skin? It's right at the front-most hole of the 2nd rib from the inboard side of the tank.

IMG_3414.JPG
 
Mistake

Not sure what the experts will say but I would use the rivet hole where it goes, flatten the bad dimple and add a new hole equally spaced assuming the edge distance is available. You can fill the bad hole with proseal when the tank is assembled.
YMMV

Ask Vans to be certain.
 
Add hole

gfb said:
What do you mean by "add a new hole equally spaced"?
Click to expand...

Add an additional rivet between the two Vans holes but spaced such that no minimum edge distances are violated. May not be possible. It would land about 19/32 on the scale in the photo. You would have to fully assemble, measure, drill, disassemble, debur and dimple just for the one new hole in the skin and rib. You might have to add a doubler to the inside of the rib too. My opinion and not an expert.
 
Before moving forward with this, I suggest taking two rivets and seeing if they will fit next to each other.. the photo seems that the holes are too close together; the first rivet may prevent the second rivet from laying flush.

If all is good, I would place a doubler behind both holes and move on.
 
Get a new skin. I've used my "spare" skin for all kinds of extra projects and improvements.

A good friend, who restores airplanes for a living, told me to try and avoid oops rivets at all cost. His reason was that they tend to pull out. In the tank you won't have a lot of surface area to seal the rivet on, so just for a peace of mind, I would replace the skin.
 
Talked to the Van's folks about this. Their suggestion was to leave the spare hole empty and just seal it well with pro-seal. It was too close to the other for a proper rivet and is still entirely covered by the rib flange.

I have the fuse kit coming in a month and am still on the fence about adding a new skin to that order as it would cost nothing extra in shipping. On the other hand, thats $90 I could spend elsewhere...

The question is, am I getting $90 worth of value for not having a hole there? :)
 
I’m not sure anything with an RV is more dreaded than a leaky tank. I would get a new skin in this case, anywhere else would not concern me.

PS.. it’s okay to admit the mistake, we all have them. You don’t have to hang your poor buddy out on this! :)
 
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Yeah, I'm gonna just order a new skin, specially as I don't have to pay any extra to ship.

Thanks everyone for your input!
 
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