Tanking

As part of the effort to get the chassis itself finally completed and sent to be powdercoated, attention turned to the fuel tank.  I have no aspirations to make my own but the mounting points had to be set-out in such a way that the part, once fabricated, could bolt straight in with minimal fuss.  This meant fabricating a template that I could use to locate the mounting points while the tank maker could use it to help make the tank itself.

The plan for the tank is another good idea that I've stolen from someone else.  Matt and Ivan at Procomp Motorsport can be thanked for this.  Here's one they made earlier:

The idea is that the tank sits against the back bulkhead and above the axle on the passenger side.  While the mass of the fuel sits quite high, there are a number of advantages to this method:

1. The tank is well away from the rear of the car and therefore less likely to be interfered with in the event that the car hits a tyre wall backwards.
2. The weight is over the rear axle; Procomp's LA Golds have a habit of outrageously good starts and one suspects that this plays a part.
3. The fuel and tank should, along with the engine which is also placed as far to the left as is possible  (from a RHD perspective,) go some way to balancing-out the weight of the driver i.e. me.

So, having made a couple of cardboard templates, I the dragged out the jigsaw, files, sanding block and drill and produced the following.

Its worth noting that mine is wider than the Procomp version.  I suspect that my bulkhead isn't quite as tall as on a Locost and I have the Brikett 6-hour relay in mind so want a little extra capacity.

The tank will eventually be mounted with the same style threaded inserts that we used on the engine mounts, as seen here.  The tank will be isolated from some vibration by using 5mm thick rubber washers.  The mounting method can be seen below.

Again with chassis completion firmly on my mind, I also wanted to decide where my Digidash 2 was going to live.  After much deliberation I decided that behind the wheel would be best.

I'll now probably get the mount water-jet cut so it can be tig-welded to the column.

That's it for now.  I'm still waiting for the reverse gear and motor to return, but I've been promised that I'll see it this week.  Fingers crossed!

TC