Saturday morning was spent wandering round the local autojumble and ignoring the mess i had left for myself. Was a good trip and i picked up a few bits, nothing too noteworthy for myself though.
Enough procrastination time to get tidied up and started on the next job.
The raptor datasheet recommends 5-7 days before giving it any hard use so i don't want to be bolting everything back on just yet id rather wait the recommended period of time than run the risk of messing it up at this point.
In the mean time what can we be doing?
Well i have a fuel tank thats looking a bit scabby.
The plan for this is a general clean up and while i have it out change all the hoses and seals for “modern" fuels. The car will be getting run on E10 most of the time as a daily so i want to be sure the tank is sealed and the hoses are suitable. I don't want to get a few yearsinto driving it and go up in flames due to a perished line.
In the spirit of that a box arrived.
On with the tank
I stripped it out and had a gander inside, I was rather impressed.
Just the outside to clean up then. I picked up a 3" da sander at the autojumble so gave it a test run. Am pretty happy with the results.
It gives a really nice finish with the 80grit and should key well with the paint.
Some areas got rust converter
Then onto the decision regarding paint. It wasnt a hard choice i have a tin of epoxy mastic that i bought for something else and didnt use. I might aswell use that.
After 2 coats its looking rather tidy.
It is grey though so I'm going to let it cure and then follow up with a black topcoat.
While its drying i can be working on something else. I have the front wings to sort out.
As a bit of background information for those who don't know the Japanese MK2’s didnt have side repeaters in the wings whereas the UK versions did.
Since my car is JDM it doesnt have the holes in the wings.
But back when i got the car i swapped one wing out due to rust and at the time just filled the hole with a plate tack welded on the back and then filler over the front which is less than ideal as the filler often ends up sinking.
Since i bent the other original wing i need to fill the hole in my spare.
Mildy annoying that these wings were once japanese ones too before someone hacked a hole into it with an angle grinder and I'm now having to plate it up again.
I'm trying out a new method for a change and will be tig welding the repair in and then trying to straighten it out as much as possible afterwards with hammer and dolly.
With as little gap around the panel as possible i tacked it in place
And fully welded
It was rather rough welding. Blew through in a few spots, maybe the metal was a bit thin or i didnt move fast enough.
Anyway cleaned back a little bit first and then start hammering out the welds.
From the little i know your aiming to only stretch the welds as that should be the only bit that shrank and distorted your panel.
After hammering dolly for a while and a little bit of clean up i was fairly happy with it. There will still need to be a thin skim of filler but thats acceptable. And i might go over it again once i have it bolted to the car.
And onto the other wing.
Chopped off my previous bodge.
Then tacky tack.
I don't know how people can do “fusion tacks" on the tig it just doesnt work for me. Rather than the 2 pieces welding together i just get both pieces melting away from each other. I nearly always have to add a bit of rod to my tacks.
I decided to give the pulse setting on my welder a try for welding it all in and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked since i don't have a foot pedal i cant just back off when it gets a bit hot so this was a good compromise.
Happier with that one and again plenty of hammering till it looks like this
Once the epoxy was cured on the tank i gave it a top coat of gloss black. Its nothing special, just some celly that has been laying around.
I guess my next job is to start ordering fuel lines and gasket material. Get the paramedic on standby for my wallet, i think I'm going to need one.
