Yesterday was the first "Tank Day" for the '09/10 racing year....all that I'd really done was take the bodywork off , let the tyres down and give it a wash. The fact that there was moisture beading on parts of the frame indicated that there was still salt residue , old timers will attest to the kinds of places it gets to.So yesterday we did the job properly . We emptied the water tank and took it off so we could get in to the engine bay, removed the fuel tank filter and lines and plugged up everything on the motor and gave it a really good wash. It has never looked so clean.
It was good to get into the bay and see that nothing had given up, also to see that some oil had got out of the gearbox breather and dripped straight onto one of the collector pipes.....that explains the rich sulphur smell on my first run.Nothing looked cooked, the heat shields that we had placed anywhere that the exhaust went near something vital all seemed to do their job, the gearshift linkages all look AOK. There's another list going up on the board inside the shed....this time there are items in blue and red, they are non-vital and expensive rather than the essential items in white.
In the removal of the fuel pump and lines I had a bit of a muck around with it and after emptying the fuel out of it and hooking a wire up to it found that it had freed itself up ......it's a Bosch 580 044, it has only gone about 30miles......it now has written on it "
died '09, keep as spare" my feeling is that it has copped a piece of epoxy from the tank lining. We will buy a new one. We will install a sock and a better in-line filter before the pump.While we were emptying the fuel tank I heard that all too familiar sucking sound as we drained the fuel through the outlet hose...I built a cross piece about one and a half inches high that sits over the outlet to prevent eddying......that obviously doesn't work, hopefully a better inline filter will lessen the potential for dangerous cavitation. I now regret even thinking of building the Al fuel tank, the effort of getting it fuel tight and expense of the liner in the end were a waste. I should have made one out of steel, or stainless with a removable plate so I could farnarkle about inside AND use an intank pump...because they are cheap and plentiful...............note to self..........the companies that make cars by the million do lots of things that save them money,and make things last longer and easier to fix when they don't( not always but mostly)......watch and learn son.
We need to upgrade our fire system. There is a problem that we are fast running out of room inside the car. There is a third bottle mount but we are not sure yet that we have the correct weight of extinguishant for the 200mph category..... There is the possibility we'll go a complete rework and place a large bottle in the very tail.
The blower manifold needs to be built, the associated changes for that are yet to be sorted.....injectors? MAP sensor?
We are looking into front brakes, drums will fit inside what we have , we were just never keen on the extra "stuff" that we need up there to run them but if there is another test and tune day at Mangalore airfield we are going to need them.
Anyway, that was Tank Day.......