It's been a while since I updated. I'll use the excuse of holidays and other things.. Though I can say that's a bit of a reach. Over the last few weeks (when I've had time to work on it), I've been working on removing the last of the fuel system and figuring a way to get the car on the rotisserie.
The fuel tanks in these (and part of the reason I prefer this model to the later ones) make up the floor of the trunk. The filler neck is located between the tail lights behind a small panel. Later years moved the tank behind the back seat and relocated the filler neck to the C-pillar on the drivers side.
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| Tank out! |
The downside to an RA21 with a trunk-floor fuel tank is that one of the first places to rust in an old car is the trunk. Since the trunk is the fuel tank, these things turn into a mess pretty quickly. This car is no exception.
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| Sending unit |
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| No tank! |
The top of the tank was in OK shape, but under the cover protecting the fuel level sending unit I found that the tank is pretty much a lost cause. The metal around the seam of the tank is splitting and the sender is rusted in place in such a way that the tank is likely not going to be salvageable.
The lip of the body the tank bolts to also had some rust in it, which can compromise the tanks ability to stay in the car. I'll have to repair this section before I can look at putting a tank back in the car.
I know that potentially one of the options to look at is just replacing the tank opening with sheet metal and using a fuel cell instead. I'm not really looking at this as an option for a few reasons. I don't want to lose valuable trunk space (these things are TINY), and I like the factory fill location. I've been able to source two fuel tanks, and just need to follow up with a few fine folks to see if one of them will end up better than what I have.
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| Rust at tank mounting location |
In addition to getting that removed, I've been working on mounting the car to the rotisserie. I don't yet have a welder and, as mentioned before, wouldn't exactly trust my welding skills to hold this little gem upside down. Most off the shelf rotisserie brackets are meant for people restoring popular muscle cars like Mopar, Mustangs, and Camaros. Since this is none of those, a little custom work needs to be done.
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| Front is good! |
I found a good mount point on the front of the car. Toyota has threaded holes on the front rails for tow/tie-down plates. The plates weren't on this car, but the holes were there. I cleaned the threads and attached the rotisserie there.
For the rear, I was hoping to use the bumper mount locations. I got some universal brackets to make that happen. After closer inspection though, and some trial and error, I found that's not going to work. The bumpers on these are pretty much decorative. At the back they bolt to the body. There is some additional bracing for their weight, but not enough to hold a car. Trying to lift by these just moves the rear sheet metal around. That's something I don't want.
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| Plates? Not so much |
Instead, I'm going to see if I can get some brackets to bolt directly to the rear body/frame. They just have to work around the rear valence as that piece is not removable. I should have something figured out by this weekend.
Past that? Just some cleanup and removing the passenger front fender.
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| Fender out |
Over the next week I'm going to be working getting the final mounting done, doors removed, and start looking for places that will tear all the paint and rust off of this animal! More to come!
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