Scotty,

Some Lancairs that LOOK like they had the parting line filled in (like mine)
but some of the early ones (like mine) merely had the header tank
permanently mounted to the fuselage. That's what the early instruction
manual called for and it didn't occur to us until later to make the tank
removeable. I've sincerely regretted that ever since the first time I had to
squeeze into a footwell to do some work or wanted to get at the stuff on the
back of the panel - it can be done but since I wasn't born with an eye on
the end of an index finger, it's not fun.

My recommendation, retain the removeability of the tank (without messing up
your paint job) - if you only need to remove the thing even once, you'll be
glad you did.

Dan Schaefer