Dateline - 10/26/2013 - I’m officially kicking off the 2013/2014 Project Car Season. Last weekend I cleaned up the garage and
workbench and changed the status of the Jag from SUV (Storage Utility Vehicle)
back to working project, which set me up for this weekend of work.
To catch you up, last year left off with a few things that
needed to be completed before the car could be painted. They included:
- Gas Tank installation
- Final fitment of the center console
- Fitment of new mirrors and hood latches
- Interior sound proofing
- Undercoating of insides of fenders
- Final mounting of fenders, doors, boot and hood
- Degrease the engine bay
- Final sanding of the exterior
So, not a lot to do to finish up.
You may remember that last year I ordered two new gas
tanks. The tanks I ordered were supposed
to be straight replacements, but when they came in, I found that they physically fit in the car, but the tanks have different fittings for the gas
line, and have an added return port that my car did not use. You would think that these fittings would not
be hard to find, but you would be wrong!
Apparently, the fittings are an English standard and are just about “unobtanium”. I was
able to get a plug for the return from Barret Motors, but the fuel line that I
got from then did not fit. So after
looking at everything I could, I finally contact the tank maker to see if they
sold the fittings. They did not, but
they did give me the specs for it. It’s a 9/16 x 24 UNEF fitting. Now, to say these are hard to find is an understatement. Hours and hours on the internet turned up
only a few sources. So finally I was
about to get the fittings, from of all places, a marine hydraulic steering system. So $50 later I have the fittings in
hand! The moral of the story is that if
I count up the time and money spend to find these fittings, I could have bought
the correct tanks from a Jaguar supplier!
To be fair to myself though, everything I could find said that these
tanks fit my car. I just didn’t realize
that “fit” means that it physically fit the car. The fittings don’t count!
So, Saturday was spent putting the right side tank in. First I putting the fitting in the tank,
sealing them with Rectoseal 5 just to make sure there are no leaks. The
tank fit easy in the space, all the mounts lined up and screws worked
fine. It was a bit fiddly because I also
have to line up the filler neck, which screws into the body and drops directly
into the tank. So getting that right
took a few adjustments, but easy enough to do.
Once the tank was installed, I ran a copper 3/8 pipe from
the tank into the trunk. This is where I
spent the rest of the day because I now had to build the “fuel management
system.” The car has two tanks, but only
one fuel gauge. The original car had two
fuel pumps, one for each tank, that fed into a single Tee fitting that then
went to a fuel filter then to the engine. When the driver selected a tank using fuel
selection switch, the appropriate pump would be activated and the sender unit
for that tank would be routed to the gauge.
With the engine conversion, the engine mounted fuel pump was
used and the old fuel pumps were taken out of the car. When I got the car only
one tank was being used because the other leaked, so there was not need to
worry about the tanks. Now that I have
two tanks and I needed to be able to control the fuel flow. I could just connect the tanks together via
the tee, but I worried about possible fuel starvation and problems when filling
the tanks. So I decided to buy two fuel
cut-off valves that would be activated by the fuel tank selection switch in the
car. The wiring already existed for
this. It was just a matter of installing
the valves and plumbing everything appropriately. Of course, this took much more time than I
thought it would, but as you can see from the pictures, the results look nice
and professional!
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| Tank with Fittings. |
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| Right hand tank in car |
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| Tank and fitting. Looking toward front |
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| Fuel Management System. Looking toward rear |
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| Fuel Management System. Looking left to right. |
So, you may be asking, why didn’t I install the left hand
tank? That’s because I still have a lot
of work to do on that side. As I talked
about in this post (http://www.leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2013/07/emergency-brake-done.html)
there is a panel that needs to be installed in the fender and sealed in so that
sound and water don’t make it to the rocker panel in the back. I completed it on the right side of the car,
but ran out of sealing material for the left side. I got the material in over the summer but I have
done no more work. So this weekend I painted
the inside of the fender in prep for putting the panel in and sealing it. I’m thinking I can get all that done next
weekend, plus get the tank installed!
So, starting the new Project car season off with a lot of
success!
