I don't recall stating that the engine was running fine before the crash, and if I did I could have been mistaken as I'm not really sure - it was getting dark and I was in a hurry to get the plane in the air (ok probably not the best decision, but that's in the past). The muffler has little fins that stick off at one end - they look like they could be for heat dissipation, though more than likely they are for looks. Two of these were chipped as a result of the crash, and there was damage to the plane under the fuse near the muffler.

I have disassembled and reassembled the fuel tank, there definitely are no leaks now. I will clean the carb and reinstall the fuel tank and try again. There IS a possiblity something happened to the carb - at one point I could not get the plane to idle as the (injector?) was not lining up with the hole on the opposite side. This happened after running the plane after the crash, and after trying to tune the low end mixture valve. I took the carb apart, adjusted the idle mix screw, and everything seemed to line up fine.

Thanks for the info; please keep the questions and/or advice coming as I am SOOOOO eager to see this 55AX run the way it was designed to run.