Observations and issues after a long weekend with the 40

Well Martha and I took the car to the Monterey Historics and had a great time. On Thursday night we went to the Cantina and met Dave Briggs and his wife. Had a couple of drinks and a great conversation about our cars. Dave, it was good meeting you. Hope to see you again next year. Oddly enough I also met up with Asthon Stander (Lance's son) and talked for a little bit. His car and mine are actually twins. Whooda thunk....

Ashton was very nice and invited us to park at their booth for the entire weekend. On saturday I was able to meet Lance and talk about the car. He was aware of the A/C problem and mentioned that when I was ready to fix it give him a call and the "uncrushed" piping would be on its way. Overall I got a pretty good feeling as to how he's running the company with an emphasis on customer support especially after the sale.

No on to the issues I encountered:

The morning of the trip down I pulled up to the gas nozzle, popped both tank caps and started to fill. Here's where it got crappy. I've always filled from the driver side, out of habit I guess, and this time I filled from the passenger side. Started to fill the passenger side. All went well initially until it started get near 3/4 full. Like every other time before "click" now I'll wait for it to start equalizing and inch it up. About 30 seconds later I noticed a puddle of fuel creeping towards my feet. Looked under the car and it was a fairly steady flow. I assumed I had a loose hose clamp at the entry to the passenger side tank and equalization over to the driver side would eventually take care of it. What do you guys think?

Next issue:

When we got to Monterey from Oakdale(where I live) I noticed my backside was damp. Now I still have full control of my bladder so I pulled the seats and noticed the floor was wet. That prompted me to pull the back panel to which I noticed several drops of engine coolant pooled up under the 90 degree rubber hose bends at the ends of the coolant pipes traveling down the tunnel. I can only assume that when in the higher RPM's the water pressure overcomes the hose clamps and they allow the hoses to seep. Have any of you guys experienced this? Any fixes?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated

Rich.
 

Rick Muck- Mark IV

GT40s Sponsor
Supporter
All cooling clamps should be re-torqued after reaching full temp. It never seems to fail that one will weep/leak after the system has come to full temperature at least once.

The fuel leak is a puzzler, the crossover line should not leak dependant upon fill side, the pressure from fuel weight should be the same left/right and unless there was enough extra weight to bypass the clamp/seal due to the selected fill side, I would not suspect that as the cause.

The "crushed" AC duct tubes are supposed to be a thing of the past. I had the AC unit moved out of the way today to work on the wiper motor on P2271 and the tubes looked good. The fresh air intake tube that is fed from the LH NACA duct had a little "crush" on it due to the fact it must snake between the brake and clutch reservoirs so it is "ovaled" some but probably has 80% flow or better (not a factor on a RHD car, one more reason to go "opposite" side!!!)
 

Kirby Schrader

They're mostly silver
Lifetime Supporter
With respect to the coolant hoses... check them all!

The one and only time I had my car go home on a flatbed was when I was taking a friend from Canada for a ride. About 8 miles from home, I turned around and gave it hell. The second to third shift was met with a cloud of what I thought was smoke in my rear view mirror and then my butt started burning big time. Instant first thought... somehow I had a fire.

Have you ever tried to unbuckle your five point while trying to lift your butt up out of the seat while trying to slow down as rapidly as possible with the back end sliding all over the place? Oh, and the passenger looking at me with a WTF? look on his face?

Turns out, one of the hoses was not all the way on the central pipe coming from the front of the car. Although I had tightened them all, this one is difficult to see and was not all the way on the pipe and it came off. Dumping hot coolant out as fast as the engine could pump it. Into the interior and onto the road. Hence the 'smoke', the back tires sliding all over and my butt on fire... When I jumped out of the car, I had over an inch of coolant in my seat.....

OK, you can stop laughing now....

Seriously, once I got it home, I actually loosened all the hoses, made sure they were pushed onto the pipes completely and then re-tightened them.

Fuel - I'd check the big clamps on the hose and your gasket on the fuel sender. It does sound like the big hose clamps though...

FWIW,
Kirby


Well Martha and I took the car to the Monterey Historics and had a great time. On Thursday night we went to the Cantina and met Dave Briggs and his wife. Had a couple of drinks and a great conversation about our cars. Dave, it was good meeting you. Hope to see you again next year. Oddly enough I also met up with Asthon Stander (Lance's son) and talked for a little bit. His car and mine are actually twins. Whooda thunk....

Ashton was very nice and invited us to park at their booth for the entire weekend. On saturday I was able to meet Lance and talk about the car. He was aware of the A/C problem and mentioned that when I was ready to fix it give him a call and the "uncrushed" piping would be on its way. Overall I got a pretty good feeling as to how he's running the company with an emphasis on customer support especially after the sale.

No on to the issues I encountered:

The morning of the trip down I pulled up to the gas nozzle, popped both tank caps and started to fill. Here's where it got crappy. I've always filled from the driver side, out of habit I guess, and this time I filled from the passenger side. Started to fill the passenger side. All went well initially until it started get near 3/4 full. Like every other time before "click" now I'll wait for it to start equalizing and inch it up. About 30 seconds later I noticed a puddle of fuel creeping towards my feet. Looked under the car and it was a fairly steady flow. I assumed I had a loose hose clamp at the entry to the passenger side tank and equalization over to the driver side would eventually take care of it. What do you guys think?

Next issue:

When we got to Monterey from Oakdale(where I live) I noticed my backside was damp. Now I still have full control of my bladder so I pulled the seats and noticed the floor was wet. That prompted me to pull the back panel to which I noticed several drops of engine coolant pooled up under the 90 degree rubber hose bends at the ends of the coolant pipes traveling down the tunnel. I can only assume that when in the higher RPM's the water pressure overcomes the hose clamps and they allow the hoses to seep. Have any of you guys experienced this? Any fixes?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated

Rich.
 

Jack Houpe

GT40s Supporter
Rich I would take those little panels off in the front wheel well and check those clamps, bet the smell drove you out of the car for awhile. I have had the hose problem on other cars that I have rebuilt or just changed all the hoses, I learned the hard way a long time ago to drive for a tank full then tighten everything. Sort of like Kirby hot ass. :)
 
All cooling clamps should be re-torqued after reaching full temp. It never seems to fail that one will weep/leak after the system has come to full temperature at least once.

FWIW, an old Pantera technique is to use TWO hose clamps at each location....
 
Mike,

My car is #2200 but the chassis number is #107 FWIW. Yes I'm pretty sure the fuel was getting close to the top. For the last year my process for filling up the left tank is pump, wait for the vapor click off, wait.....wait.......wait....get some equalization the repeat. The first time at the right tank was pump.....vapor click off, wait.......smell and see the puddle look under and see the constant drip......shit. I sure hope its just a loose clamp and not a leaking seam.

Rich.

BTW, I always pop open both gas caps when I fill up.
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
It can be a pain (quite literally) when shaking out a new car like this...

My advice would be to ditch and worm-gear like radiator clamps in favor of T-Bolt stainless steel clamps such as these;

Turbonetics 30275-155 - Turbonetics T-Bolt Clamps - Overview - SummitRacing.com

You can find them cheaper (actually half this price) if you look around. I've bought them from shops that service trucks and build hoses etc..

Well worth the money...

tnt-30275-175_w.jpg
 
On the issue with the seaping coolant, I think I'm going to try another clamp. We'll see how that works.

On the issue with the fuel. Again I'm going to try another clamp.

Does anybody have an idea how hard it is to pull the tanks out of the car?

And last, I haven't had alot of time to devote to the car as of late, LONG work hours, but I'd like to order the T bolt clamps. Does anybody off hand know the OD of the hoses at the end of the coolant pipes and the OD of the hoses used to vent and and fill the fuel tanks?

TIA
Rich.
 
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