It’s a good thing that we don’t smoke, because for the past few days, a lot of our work underneath the Saab has been with the fuel tank. We first noticed that the accumulator was leaking (an accumulator is a small fuel filter sized cannister that maintains pressure to ease hot-start issues) was leaking a little bit of gas and after we filled the tank up, the vent tube was also leaking. We ordered a new accumulator and replaced the vent tube, but when we tried to unbolt the accumulator from its bracket on the side of the gas tank, the gas tank itself started leaking. Uh oh.
We drained the tank, removed it and filled it up with a mixture of soap and water to remove as much fuel residue as possible to make sure that this situation doesn’t become explosive.
Now, we’re debating whether or not we want to fix this tank or replace it with a fuel cell. The advantage of the fuel cell, above and beyond the additional safety, is that we can put it up in the trunk, instead of where the stock tank is, hanging behind the rear axle. This means we wouldn’t have to fabricate a heavy skidplate to keep it from getting punctured on stage. We’re looking at ATL’s 12 gallon cell and having them put in a surge tank and intank fuel pump to supply our fuel injection. This should make it a pretty easy conversion, just hook up the lines and wires and fabricate a few brackets to keep it in the right place in the trunk.
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