Various jobs moving forward, it feels like a good next milestone is to complete the rear end, so:
- Install the fuel tank
- Complete the low pressure fuel circuit to the tank
Install the rear panel(bottled this for a bit - played with the engine instead)
The fuel tank in place will also give me a fixed point to finalise routing of the rear loom.
Not least; If I fit the rear panel I can stop tripping over it where it sits along the side of the garage.
Not least; If I fit the rear panel I can stop tripping over it where it sits along the side of the garage.
To that end, I took a look at the fuel tank, cleaned up the burrs on the inlet/outlet pipes & installed the fuel sender.
First checked the sender is working, showing resistance approx. 10-200 ohms across its range.
I also checked the throw on the sender float was appropriate & worked out the orientation to ensure it had free movement.
First checked the sender is working, showing resistance approx. 10-200 ohms across its range.
I also checked the throw on the sender float was appropriate & worked out the orientation to ensure it had free movement.
The sender is attached with 6 self tapping screws, I marked out and drilled 1mm 2mm pilot holes for them. I used duct tape inside the tank to catch any swarf, moving round with a new piece for each pair of holes. Even though the drill bit went through the tape, as expected, it caught much of the swarf on the way - so hopefully it worked ok:
After drilling I cleaned out the tank by sluicing through a little petrol to remove any obvious debris, cleaned up the tank and sender mating surfaces with a little white spirit and used a bead of Loctite 5922 around the edge and over the screw pilot holes to create a seal.
Hindsight - the pictures on KitSpares & other blogs show the sender unit with a rubber gasket - mine didn't have one - so I hope the Loctite will do the job!
Preparation on the chassis, a couple of stainless steel washers bonded off centre over the spare wheel mounting bracket holes to make sure any mistaken long bolt is unlikely to puncture the fuel tank immediately above. I also painted these with black hammerite reduce/eliminate the chance of any metal/metal reaction with the alloy tank:
I let the fuel sender and chassis washer paint go off all afternoon then proceeded with the tank bonding.
Couple of centre marks on the tank and chassis, & bonded in: a bead on the bottom 3 chassis rails & along the boot rail, then another bead/fillet on top once the tank is in place:
After these pictures I also marked either end of the tank on the chassis parts just above - a visual reminder when I fit the filler panels at either end not to drill down into the tank!
Once it all goes off over night I can connect up the fuel lines and route the loom.
