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The team and I are planning on writing a Restorer article about tanker restoration soon. Having done 2 completely and 3 others as fix ups from previous restorations, I hope to be able to add as much info and pictures as possible about these rare cars. Stay tuned.
I'd never seen a pic of an NO3 tank before. Thanks for posting.
Originally Posted by mikelj
Found the leak, not the seam, but a hole punched somehow, sometime, had been leaking for a long time it looks like. I suspect some previous owners may not have filled it up that far for the leak to happen before I did.
Here's an interesting picture of the inner underbody under the tank after we removed it. If you look closely you can see a big chunk of the driveshaft tunnel was taken out during its' old racing days. With a Z06 tanker and a 4.11 rear end, you can imagine the punishment it may have taken back in the day. Lucky the broken driveshaft did not punch through the tank, but it was close no doubt. We will repair this properly before putting the tank back in.
I've owned 5 of these tanks over the past 40 years. Three were complete, one was an NOS tank only and one a used tank only. I think the 36 gallon tank was one of the neatest options for 63-67 Corvettes.
I had a similar experience when re-restoring my blue 63 back in 2012. The car had been body-off restored in 1989, and did well in judging for the previous owner (Bloomington Gold, Duntov, Triple Crown) but after mostly sitting for twenty years it needed a redo.
After pulling the body off, John Hinckley came over and went through the chassis with me. You could still eat off of the frame, but the list of things John found wrong was long and distinguished; it was amazing how much the old pink Judging Guide failed to specify. The fuel tank was blue...Finding all those old rare original parts was a nightmare...
Good luck with Zoe...
John is the master of assembly. His years as Plant manager at the St. Louis Plant in 66 and 67 if memory serves me needs to be recorded. WE NEED TO HAVE a 63 Z0-6 and 63 STANDARD Split Window NCRS SEMINAR with he and Mike as SPEAKERS. Rex, you can come also. Let's do another ''around the campfire'' NCRS SEMINAR. Ed and I and Tony have started the conservation. The judging manual is.................I won't go there.
Last edited by jimgessner; 01-31-2019 at 10:27 AM.
Here's an interesting picture of the inner underbody under the tank after we removed it. If you look closely you can see a big chunk of the driveshaft tunnel was taken out during its' old racing days. With a Z06 tanker and a 4.11 rear end, you can imagine the punishment it may have taken back in the day. Lucky the broken driveshaft did not punch through the tank, but it was close no doubt. We will repair this properly before putting the tank back in.
I bet the failure was a broken U-joint, not the shaft. The front axle mounting bracket/shaft tunnel would have contained the drive shaft.
Back when I was a production engineer at Pontiac in 1968 one of the experienced engineers told me a story about a broken driveshaft at Milford. It happened to a high revving, short geared GTO. The driveshaft broke and came up through the floor pan, but the driver was not injured.
What happened was the rotational frequency of the shaft achieved equality with the natural bending frequency of the shaft, which caused resonance. Think of walking across a 2 x 12 at a construction site. At the right pace that thing will bounce up and down enough to nearly throw you off.
To increase driveshaft bending frequency the diameter and/or material thickness must be increased, or use a two-piece shaft with a center support bearing. Chevrolet did the former for the Cosworth Vega. It's driveshaft is unique by being a half-inch larger OD than regular Vegas to increase the bending frequency for the high revving engine. Fortunately, it's easy to compute the natural bending frequency of a simple geometry part, like a tube of constant OD and material thickness, and the Chevy engineers did their homework.
Corvette6680, thanks for posting your pics. In the last pic of the exposed area, are the stains the result of your tank leaking in the past? Scary! Dennis
[QUOTE=Bluestripe67;1599232688]Corvette6680, thanks for posting your pics. In the last pic of the exposed area, are the stains the result of your tank leaking in the past? Scary! Dennis[/QUOT
Yes unfortunately
01-30-2019, 10:39 AM
Dennis
