I can see how the tank is restrained in the up/ down and left/right directions, but what about the fore/aft directions? Is it just the friction of the straps that is supposed to restrain it?
Photography by Tim Suddard
Now that our Elva’s fuel cell had been restored by ATL, we needed to mount it. But how? There isn’t any kind of restoration manual for this.
While going through old pictures of the car, we noticed that the original tank was strapped on. While we didn’t receive any of this hardware, we noticed holes in the frame that seemed to coincide with these mounts.
The original straps looked to have been connected with a compression fitting of sorts that, through the use of a bolt, squeezed the top and bottom straps together to tighten the cell in place.
Coincidentally, while cleaning out the garage, we discovered a box of exhaust system parts that included one of these fittings! Could we duplicate the original setup?
These fittings are made from stainless steel, and since welding stainless to mild steel is tricky at best, we decided to bolt the fittings to strips of steel we harvested from an old, damaged Mini Cooper fender.
The result looks factory, and other than some time and hardware, it didn’t cost anything.
I can see how the tank is restrained in the up/ down and left/right directions, but what about the fore/aft directions? Is it just the friction of the straps that is supposed to restrain it?
stu67tiger said:I can see how the tank is restrained in the up/ down and left/right directions, but what about the fore/aft directions? Is it just the friction of the straps that is supposed to restrain it?
It looks like it's a slight cone shape, so at a minimum the tank can't slide forward under braking. I guess it could slide backwards, but maybe they're just relying on friction and the car not being able to accelerate too hard to hold it in place when moving forwards.
stu67tiger said:I can see how the tank is restrained in the up/ down and left/right directions, but what about the fore/aft directions? Is it just the friction of the straps that is supposed to restrain it?
I f it becomes necessary, a retaining strap to prevent the tank from sliding to the rear can be easily made. But since this has been brought up, now might be the time to make it!
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