Outlaw Anglia - took it racing & lifted the wheels!

Oh dear. Bad? Or just annoying?

Bit of both.

Caught the front on the ground in the campsite so its split all the paint on the bottom of the front spoiler - so a fairly major job of repairs there.

Just as I got home it smelt of petrol, parked on drive and them moved it into garage - big wet puddle of fuel on floor and it was pouring out of the side of the tank. Managed to undo the fuel hose & run fuel pump to empty tank into the Mondeo - garage stinks of petrol now

Pulled tank last night & there is a 100mm fracture down the weld, welder had only 'fused' the panels together so very little penetration. Will ask work if they will re-weld it, I cleaned the tank & popped a flame in it last night to burn off vapours and with the big acces holes in it it will not explode - but they may refuse to do it anyway.

Am I right in remembering that you can steam a fuel tank prior to welding as it warms it up as well so its considered extra safe ?
At least you got home but small consolation.
James

Back in the dim and distant past I was taught to run a hose from a running car’s exhaust into the tank*. I imagine 21st century H&S would have a fit at the very idea.


* As well as doing it on the other side of the yard from the workshop, with nobody standing idly by.

thank goodness you got home ok , and that it was not a body off job to get the tank out .good luck with the welding

Yeah, fuel tank could have been a lot more inconvenient or dangerous.

Tank was out in less than 20 mins, I designed stuff for easy access



It's been in the car all day and I just pulled it out and it barely smells of fuel, so most likely safe to weld.

Shows the power of epoxy primer, fuel soon got under the metallic and damaged the clearcoat but it has not affected the primer at all. (rust stuff is the media blasting compound - it's still falling out of god knows where!!)



close up shows the split in the weld;



And the damage to the front of the car - not too easy to see but there are about 12 splits in it

Yes, all the lines are cracks.

They will need to be ground out with a dremel and new gelcoat put in. I'll need to inspect the rear to see if there is any structural damage but I'm hoping its just stressed gelcoat.

Thats the easy bit, blowing in the black paint invisibly will be a bit trickier.

I was thinking the same. Its inevitable it will be repeated (you kids with your slammed cars *tuts*).

But I also know Blackpaps is something of a perfectionist so its pointless making suggestions like this. Sticky back plastic isn't going to be the answer here.

A telescopicly raising front might be though. Just click a button and zzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrr up it comes, like a dumper truck bucket.

I guess the problem with the fuel tank is how good is the rest of it? it looks like he has cleaned the weld back to a perfect finish and taken most of the strength with it, I often wonder how much strength is left when welds are ground back like this.

It might be worth pressurising it to something like 1 bar and tapping around all the welds with a mallet to see if you can start any more cracks before you but it back in.

Most production cars mount the lip on weak clips deliberately so they pull off without damaging the bumper, is that something you could consider?