Scarlett Gets A Makeover!

[joescoolcustoms]

A little more work done, (well, A LOT of work done on two other tanks) on the fuel tank. Since I am building two buggies at basically the same time, I decided to make three fuel tanks at once so as to make one mess, sandblast once, coatings all at once and so forth. One of the other tanks was a very straight forward build. The third was a lot of work I had not planned on. The original-to-the-buggy tank had the top, forward section bashed in. I have seen this before, but it did not trigger anything for me, but I later found out why. The fuel tank is too tall to fit under the hood, so extra modifications ensued.

Monday was pretty here and I performed the final sand blasting on all three. Tuesday I performed all the final welding and tonight I am performing the internal coatings. Since each internal surface of the fuel tanks have been sandblasted to remove scale, rust and the pickling on the new steel, the insides do not need washing like a normal used tank would, but go straight to step 2, Acetone wash.

Each opening is sealed and about 1 quart of acetone is put into the tank and it becomes "Arm Day" at the fuel tank Gym. I literally swirl, toss, rotate, shake, flip and move the tanks around to get a good interior wash with the Acetone. Then drain the Acetone from the tank. The tanks do not need to totally dry after this, just no puddles in the tank of Acetone. Step 3 is to re-seal all the openings after the Damen Red Kote sealer is dumped in, and round two of Arm Day begins with swirling, rotating, shaking the tanks to get the coating on all interior surfaces of the tank. (Any left over residual of Acetone left adsorbs into the internal coating since Acetone is the solvent used in the coating)

Once they have been thoroughly swished around inside, the Red Kote that is left over is drained out, and the tank left to dry for at least 2 days before applying the external coatings. All in total, it will take about 3 weeks this time of year for the tank to totally cure. If fuel is introduced before totally curing, the curing process will stop and the coating will be compromised. The way to tell when it is totally cured is to smell the inside of the tank. If any Acetone is detected, the process is not done curring. I usually set them in the sun during the day to help cure, but we will be getting snow for the next few days and temps below 30*F, so all three will be in the heated garage for the next few weeks.

I use saw horses so when I drain out the Red Kote, I can position a can underneath to catch the material.

[joescoolcustoms]

Scarlett's and the other two tanks have been internally cleaned, Damon Red Kote internally sealed and are curring.

Since I spilled the Acetone on the outsides while cleaning the interior of the tanks, I covered each opening with tape and performed a quick sandblast of the exterior surfaces to get that perfectly clean surface again.

The lower portion of each tank has now had the exteriors coated twice with Damon Over Kote. This is an exterior fuel tank sealer. It is ugly as sin when it dries, but super tough and seals the metal nicely. As a side note, both the interior and exterior coatings are compatible with the new ethanol blended fuels.

After the lower portion cures, the top of the tanks will get primed and painted. Getting close to finishing them.

[abgiles]

I'm feeling a bit guilty as of late. Joe has made more progress on Scarlett than I have over the last few weeks. I've been neglecting any and all projects that were supposed to get done, and can blame a number of things on it, but it honestly comes down to lack of motivation. I am researching way too many things at a time to focus on one specific topic, and feel overwhelmed a bit. I recently acquired a Manx II to add to the collection, and although it needs a few things, I have vowed to not touch it until I get Scarlett back together. My painter (another Manx Club member) is out at sea on a submarine for the US Navy, and won't be home until sometime next month, and that gives me just about a month to get the chassis done.

One of my major problems has been room to work and storage. Before the Christmas holidays, I finally broke down and purchased a Harbor Freight portable garage. The intent was to keep Loretta in it under a cover so that I had room in the garage to work on Scarlett's chassis. Then the Manx II came along. I am very fortunate that the Manxter that Joe was working on the last couple of months went home, and the trailer I loaned to its owner came back to me just in time this weekend. I can now focus on grinding down the horrible welds on the roll cage, and getting the chassis re-done for Scarlett. Scarlett will go in the garage, Loretta will go in the trailer, and the Manx II will head into the new portable garage. At least I should have some space to work.

[abgiles]

It's nice to finally have a rollbar. I went with the straight bars so I could use the stock roof. I had to put a 3" lift on the body so the straight bars would clear my head and give me a better view out the windshield. The front loop on my rollbar comes just to the top of the windshield also. Keep the pictures coming. I built this rollbar to follow the angle of the seats so the grandkids could get into the back seat...

Did you use any kind of support under the rear of the back? The way I received mine had a bar running from the top of the shock towers across the back, but due to the height it added, the back mounting surface was about an inch off the pan.

[FulsGld]

Yep. If you look closely where the bar goes behind the rear passenger seat you can see where it ties into the engine cage. The body is sandwiched between two plates that are tied together with four 1/2" grade 8 bolts...

[abgiles]

Yep. If you look closely where the bar goes behind the rear passenger seat you can see where it ties into the engine cage. The body is sandwiched between two plates that are tied together with four 1/2" grade 8 bolts...

Thanks! Working with the guy that's going to modify mine to make it all work.

[joescoolcustoms]

I had intended on priming and painting the top of the tanks with a gloss black. Then thinking about it, and remembering seeing several other nicely painted tanks pealing the paint off from where some fuel got spilled from over filling or a leaking gasket on the fuel tank sender, I thought best to just stick to my tried and true method, seal the top. It does not look pretty, but protecting the fuel system is one of my top to safety items on building a buggy.

Because I have also seen too many tanks leak at the sender where either a coating does not seal with the gasket, or the coating dissolves upon contact with fuel, I leave the very seal portion of the sender hole bare metal. Once I install the sender, I apply a little brown "Indian Head" style gasket sealer to cover any exposed bare metal so it does not start rusting.

So, all three tanks are now sealed on the top side, bottom and inside. Tomorrow I will re-tap the fuel sender screw holes and drill through the vent where the sealer plugged it up, and the tank is ready to be shipped out to Brian. Scarlett should be able to run many miles on a tank full, and the tank should last her many trouble free years.

[abgiles]

We've finally got some progress on the build!

I was very upset with the roll cage once I got it home. The "builder" of the cage is a very well known sand rail builder with some amazing skills, and was highly recommended. He and I have done a number of parts swapping, purchases, etc... over the last few years, so I reached out to him for the roll cage. I gave him a number of pictures of the red Resoter that Bob Hunter built back about 8 years ago, and asked for the best copy of that he could do, with some very specific things in mind. Not only did he not do that, but some of the pipe bends had kinks, the top bars were bent, not straight, and the welds looked like garbage.

In the end, it took the police to get me my buggy back, as he decided to charge a lot more than quoted, refused to release my buggy, and all that crap. Good thing I keep documentation, such as texts and emails. The officer mediated on the spot, and although I was very unhappy, I paid the original agreed upon price, and left with her. I never put this out there, as I was more wanting to accept the crap job rather than stew on it.

I did stew quite a bit for a few months, and reached out to John and Lester from LoCash Racing near me to get it re-done.

What I can say about them is only awesome stuff! John is LoCash John on the Samba, and has been an avid VW and Buggy fan for years. He and Lester are very well known in the community, and the new cage turned out great!

They ended up scrapping about 80% of what was done (rightly so), and only the front hoop remains. They triangulated it for strength, and did the rest of it the right way.

The only remaining piece for them is to finish the seat mounts (914's like Loretta), and then I'll have it back to start on the rest of the chassis and for Wesley to get the body done.

[joescoolcustoms]

The first part of the story sucks. And even though it is tied to your history with Scarlett, moving on with John and Lester's work will make it a much happier buggy to own in the long run.

Looks good, and I am happy for you that you were able to "get it right". I am looking forward to seeing it someday.

[polexican23]

Glad to see some progess on the resorter.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

[abgiles]

It's been quite a while since I've posted, as it's been quite a busy year. My new job is great, as I work just about 5 months out of the year. However, I've had zero room to work, as our old house had a 2 car garage (housing Loretta, my tools, and a ton of parts. The driveway had a fairly steep incline, so no working there. I had the Manx 2 in a Harbor Freight Portable Garage and since Scarlett was just in primer and the chassis and roll cage need to be blasted and painted anyway, I had no choice but to leave her under a car cover in the back yard.

We finally purchased out dream home a couple of months ago, and along with the wider 2 car garage, we have a 20x24 covered carport. We moved in just in time to have Loretta stored in the new garage, along with the tools and parts, and got Scarlett and the Manx 2 in the old garage just in time for Hurricane Irma to take the portable garage for a ride across the fence into the neighbor's back yard.

As soon as we cleaned up from Irma, did the fence repairs, etc.. I had to leave for the fall outage season (I work nuclear outages on turbine generators) and have been gone the last 6 weeks. I'll be home for the winter here in a few days, and will finally be working on buggies again.

As soon as I get back, I'll be putting the deposit down on my workshop/garage/mancave, a 30'x60' shop that I've been finalizing designs for over the last couple of months. I figure the building will be built by the beginning of the year, and hopefully the wiring, plumbing, and insulation will be completed by the end of January.

I'll be doing as much progress as I can during the next few months. Excited to finally get going again!

[FulsGld]

This is GOOD news!!!