Or – Transformers – Fuel Tanks in Disguise!

So, before I make the part out of lovely aramid and carbon I thought I’d do the sensible thing and crack a part out of chopped strand mat first. I wanted to do this for three reasons:

• check the part for fit in the car – if the mould needed a tweak or two, now is the time.
• check the part for fit for the ATL fuel sender – I’d gone to a huge amount of effort to site this so that it reaches to the bottom of the tank.
• fill it full of water to see what the capacity is

Here we have the entire set of parts pulled and trimmed from the mould. As I went along, my trimming got a lot better a lot quicker. I realised it was far easier to scribe the part in the mould for where the trim-line should be, and then to pop it out and trim it. As such, I have a few gaps which have been sorted with how I’m bonding it together (30mm strips of glass, wet laid on).

Now the part is pulled and bonded together, hopefully you get a sense of the size and shape of it.

I managed to bond the whole of the top tank (the top bar of the T shape) internally, but the lower part needs to be bonded externally. I did a reasonable job, but it’s not watertight. It was good practice for when I do the aramid/carbon part.

The entire part weighs just over 2kg, which gives me a saving of 3.7kg over the standard midget tank. It’s a great weight saving, before I even take into account moving the mass about.