Hey Keith,
I definitely feel your pain. I will need to replace my main tank as well (obviously.) I saw the work that John Loram did on his
Header Tank
to ensure that it didn't leak, and I was thinking about doing the same thing.
Namely, I was going to build the Header outside of the fuselage, and put a top on it to ensure that I didn't have any leaks before floxing into the fuselage.
However, I put my feelers out to some people that I respect in the community and they said there really wasn't any good reason to do this. It just adds weight. So now I am seriously thinking about just building both tanks according to the plans.
Lots of people have built them the way QAC intended and had no trouble. The people who ended up with leaking fuel tanks most likely didn't add enough flox around the perimeter, or didn't ensure that the fuselage was sealed properly before closing everything up.
I think the problem with both of my tanks was lack of fuselage sealing.
What I've discovered with the building process so far, is that the more time you spend re-inventing the wheel the less time you actually spend building. It's more important to keep steady progress happening than to waste time contemplating your next action.
Therefore, I've become a big fan of sticking to the plans as much as possible. Except in those places that 30 years worth of experience has shown don't really work. (Like the taildragger wheel alignment.) You'll be flying much sooner that way.
Just my two cents, please let me know if I can be of any further service.
Cheers,
Dan Yager
www.quickheads.com
PS: I added a link to your website on the links page! (Maybe you wouldn't mind linking back to this site as well.) Please let me know. Thanks.