2012: New Fuel Tanks

The Rochdale has fibreglass petrol tanks which had worked well until they started putting ethanol in petrol.

Half the reason for repairing the car after the crash was the petrol tanks were still OK and a lot of work had gone into them. Fibreglass petrol tanks sound odd but had worked perfectly well until they started to add ethanol to petrol.

Ethanol melts fibreglass and the tanks had started to leak.

Robert lives in Spain so visits to work on the car are infrequent. The new tanks needed to be fabricated and fitted in a week. He made the tanks from aluminium for lightness and I TIG welded them together for him badly. (I haven't had my aluminium TIG lesson yet.)

Fortunately they pressure tested OK. We also did some proper pressure testing with an air line and a tyre valve and found one little leak. I initially tried to weld it before deflating the tank and blew molten aluminium across the workshop. Oops.

The new tanks fit quite neatly. There is no plan to cover them over.

I had trouble welding the filler necks so the tanks went to a friend to have those fitted.

The new tanks seem to be a success and the Rochdale is awaiting the next visit.

That's all there is to report. I moved house at the beginning of 2013 and the Rochdale is now at a secret location in Scotland.