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John’s Lakester
Target March 2001
The tank I have is from an F86 Sabre. I have
borrowed a picture from a book called Legends of the Air Vol 1 by
Stewart Wilson. There are at least two sizes of wing mounted
tanks used on these planes. The one that I have is 167 gallons,
and there is another of about 100 gallons, which is only about 18
inches in diameter. It was produced by the Fletcher aviation
company, but most of the label is missing. It was on a derelict
tobacco sprayer when I come across it. The owner had rolled the
sprayer on a slope about 13 years ago, decided he was too old to
farm and retired. The sprayer was parked next to the shed, and
there it sat until May this year.
The car is a joint project with my brother Paul.
The current specs for the car are as follows:
Front end:
The front end is Ford Prefect, with split radius rods. The radius rods have been modified, with the tubes being removed from the ends that attach to the axle, and a pair of rear tubes welded on. This made them a more usable size. A pair of FC Holden stub axles have been attached to the Ford axle. The axle and the stub axle have been reamed out to suit oversized kingpins. HQ Holden disks have been adapted to the early Holden stubs, and redrilled to a Ford bolt pattern to suit the '37 Dodge wheels. The Prefect steering linkages have been modified to move the steering box to the center, and the column has been shortened, and fitted with a Moroso quick change steering hub. The Prefect steering box is terrible. Between the wear a
Rear end:
The rear end comprises a Torana center section, with XY Falcon ute axle tubes fitted. The Falcon tubes are marginally larger than the inside diametr of the Torana tubes, so the Falcon tubes were cleaned up with a sander, then mated together with a large hammer. This gives us a Ford bolt pattern, which matches most of the other cars at the meeting in case we need to borrow some tyres. The diff is located by a pair of '37 Ford split radius rods.
Suspension:
None. I was originally planning to use transverse springs, with lever action shocks on the rear. I couldn't work out how to fit all the bits and pieces needed in the front of the tank, which is only about 12 inch diameter at the front. In the end, I made a couple of pieces of left over tube with ends that fit to the mounting points for the transverse springs. It rides rough until you reach about 75 Mph, but then is OK. As it turned out, suspension on the rear would have been marginal, as the tailshaft is really too short to let the axle move too far. One of our members is building a tank with a Volkswagon trans axle. It will be very interesting to see how it goes, and if suspension makes a difference. The car is set with about three quarters of an inch clearance. This is OK on the track, but scrapes every where else on the lake, and is constantly bellying out any where else.
Engine:
The engine is a 90's imported Toyota
1JZ-GTE. The particular one is the non VVTI from a Soarer.
The gearbox and motor are yet to be mated. The engine has a 4
speed auto on it which is not suitable.
The gear box is from a Toyota Hiace. It was cheap, and has a
short extension housing.
A scatter shield has been made from a piece of 6mm plate rolled
to fit around the clutch housing.
Body:
The lower and front parts of the body is
from the wing tanks of an F86 Sabre jet. The canopy and the rear
section are hand formed fibreglass over a plaster form. I would
not do it this way again, it would have been much simpler to make
a mould. The finishing work to get the body half straight was
considerable.
The paint is swap meet special. The blue was bought at a swap
meet about 4 years ago to paint a ute, that never happened. The
yellow was bought for the same price, from the same person in the
same spot at the same swapmeet in Feb this year. It is equipment
yellow, and was $5 a litre.
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