Sunday, February 3, 2008

Design masterpiece

No movement for TFW due to many reasons so work continues on the Austin,.... now, I was poking around the engine bay like i do and noticed that the fuel line is routed, quite astonishingly along the chassis member and around the front under the radiator. Now this strikes me as one of the dumbest places you could possibly think to put a thin walled pipe feeding petrol to the engine especially when being pumped by an electric fuel pump mounted in the boot. So picture the scene, in an accident the front end gets smashed up, the fuel line ruptures but the electrics are OK so the pump keeps pumping fuel out ....hmmm nice.
Luckily technology has advanced somewhat in the last 40 years and modern cars use an inertia switch so in the event of a crash the sudden impact trips the switch and cuts the power to the pump. A quick search on ebay turned up one for 8 quid, new ones are about 30.
A scratch round my parts bin at the work shop threw up some brackets and a few drill holes later and everything was put together ready for mounting. Just so happens there was a handy place just above the fuel pump and bit of electrickery wiring later the job was done. Money and well spent me thinks....you just never know.







The workshop is a fantastic place but my allocated spot didn't really leave any room for a workbench, so when a guy just by the side of me said he no longer needed his space i did the calculations a decided the extra pennies (kroner) every month would be within my meager means. So i've expanded and this is now part of my domain, it's going to be great not having to work crouched down over a rug on the workshop floor.

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