23 July 2022
I've been doing a lot of thinking about the drip tray. I was trying to come up with a way of making a mould so I could make the drip tray off that. Then I had an idea – I can use the underneath of the fuel tank. If I use that as the plug and make the drip tray that shape I can then mount that to the chassis below the tank. The finish can be quite rough, and I'll cover it in some of the GRP sealer I'm going to paint the inside of the shell with. As long as it doesn't stick to the tank! I made a start on that by turning the tank over and putting it on the bench. I decreased it with some all purpose wipes and a bit of brake cleaner. Then I taped over the holes round the edge. The tank is covered in some sort of rubber coating, which I left on there. I applied several coats of PVA glue as a release agent, I wasn't sure how much dilution I needed but in the end I decided I used less than 1:1 just so it was thin enough to brush out. I left the PVA to dry fully overnight. In between coats I finished of the termination on the front loom for the driving lights then I wrapped the loom and added p-clips for the wiring in the body. The chassis loom is temporarily strapped to the chassis with tie wraps. I'll add some p-clips later on when the body is off. 24 July 2022 I cut up enough chopped strand mat to cover the fuel tank with a couple of layers, then mixed up some resin and applied it to the fuel tank. I let that cure for a while then applied overlapping mat and resin. I then left that to dry overnight. Tomorrow we will see if it comes off the fuel tank or not! 25 July 2022 Well that didn't go to plan! It took about 3 hours of prying and levering with scrapers, screwdrivers, and pry bars to get the cast off the fuel tank. There is damage to the drip tray but I think it is repairable. The coating on the underside of the fuel tank is heavily gouged from the tools I used. The fibre glass has released quite well in terms of the surface finish but the bond was much to strong. I think if I have to do something similar again I will invest in some wax or similar. I'll respray the underneath of the tank with Raptor or something similar once I've cleaned it up. The drip tray needs cutting down to fit in the space and repairs to some parts but I think overall I am counting that as a success. 30 July 2022 I tried trimming the drip tray to fit in the space. However by the time it fitted there wasn't much left. It needs a significant amount of fibre glass adding back yo make it work. So I've scrapped that idea. It was a good idea I think, it just didn't work as I planned, but that's part of the build experience. You try something sometimes it works, sometime you have to give up and try something else. I learned a bit about taking casts in fibreglass too. I found some Dinitrol stone chip in the garage so sprayed over the underside of the fuel tank to cover up the mess I'd made of the coating. 1 August 2022 Did some thinking about what the purpose of the drip tray was; to me it's to stop fuel dripping on the exhaust. I also did some thinking about the tank and how it was installed in the MX5. It wasn't inside the body it was slung underneath and there wasn't a drip tray on that. So I decided to make a simple shield to go over the top of the exhaust pipe. Any fuel dripping on it would run down and drip on the floor. Providing there's an air gap between it and the exhaust it shouldn't be too hot. I made up a cardboard template and then cut it out of some thin aluminium and bent it over my sand filled pipe former. I made a cutout for the exhaust hanger. I made some brackets and bolted it to the subframe and the chassis near the prop-shaft tunnel. While I was under the car I put the subframe brace back on the car. I will need to make up a smaller plate to cover the last bit under the subframe. That pretty much completed my list of jobs for this stage, next time the body will be coming off and then I've got a list of things to tackle. Biggest one is to track down the engine rough running I encountered last time I ran it. I'm hoping it's a simple air leak.
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AuthorThis is my first kit car although I've messed about with cars all my life. Archives
November 2023
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