Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Apollo bracket

Sorted. Decided to just make it, from some 1.2mm. Perfectly ok!
Need more welding power to double side weld, finished bar grinding off the clag on the outside, have to cut a 90mm hole in the centre and "dish" the remains of the top of the mount so the tank sits inside it properly. Then make an alloy square with a 100mm hole, to be tig'ed on the tank by the line of the weld around its base.
You get the idea. I'll also get a small bracket welded about 3/4 up the tank and add small brace bar to damp any vertical vibration through the tank. This rod-brace will run to the shock tower...Just a piece of 6mm O/D alloy tube with a couple of tiny radiocontrolled car rod-ends on either end.
Hopefully get this finished and welded in tomorrow evening. I need to pressure test the tank as the bloke said may have a tiny tiny leak but £20! who cares. The kit is £200 from Caterham! It owes me £40 so far...I'll find the leak and weld it up!

2 comments:

Bricol said...

Dave, been reading your blog for a little while - very interesting. Can't figure out how to email you (if it's blindingly obvious - sorry!).

Apollo tank - I secured mine with a rubber lined pipe bracket, secured back to a convenient chassis rail with a rubber lined P-clip - this avoids fatigue cracking of the tank where you might weld brackets on it etc.

The fitting on the cam cover - on a Caterham, it's normally fitted the other side, but can't see it making any difference. TO void the nut dropping off the fitting into the head (even with loctite) turn the fitting round - put it through from the inside, secure with the nut on the outside and then fit the hose - so the hose fitting acts as a back up if the nut comes loose.

Be careful - the apollo tank doesn't allow you to forget oil surge problems - it simply allows de-aeration of the oil from the crank thrashing the oil in a Caterham. There's not enough back pressure or volume to maintain flow for any real time if the pumps starts sucking air.

Look forward to reading more . ..

Bri

David Powell said...

Hi, Thanks for the comment.

Yes the tank will be braced to prevent any vibrations.

Not really concerned with the nut falling off, if I was I'd simply stick a small tack weld on the fitting and nut inside the cam cover as the hose should last forever and grinding off the tack if I wish to remove the hose.

I know the apollo is just a bit swirl pot. Same as a fuel or water one.

I am using the standard rover sump, not a caterham one. The cornering surge on the caterham is prolific cause of the sumps poor design, just a flat tray! No wonder it needs a foam baffle and still suffers!

The stock sump has a deep forward chamber that holds 2.8litres of oil I can extend the pickup pipe right down inside this area then weld some baffling into the pan...Going on my previous experiences with baffling there should be NO surge at all, cornering, braking. I agree if using that caterham sump you need a dry sump ideally, imo its a flawed sump.

Cheers.