Strake closure post Jeffco failure

[CBarber]

Well, I attached the five sections lids per strake side night-before-last. One side sealed right up, the other (the first side I did....reinforcing that whenever I do it twice, the second attempt is twice as good in half the time) I found a couple of leaks and sealed them quickly....much easier since I was only having to focus on the part of the straks where the new pieces were placed on a lip and not every nook and crany that holds fuel. I had already acheived a water tight seal on the "bowl" that was the strakes w/out the tops last week. Now both sides are air-tight with pure EZPoxy.

 

For those following the saga, I chose not to try to reline the stakes with Jeffco fuel sealant. This is what failed completly causing me to rebuild my strake interiors. Great fun.....NOT. After speaking with many including Velocity, Inc I concluded that Jeffco presented another failure point with no clear advantage. As I have stated before, Velocity, Inc states they started using Jeffco to satisfy client concerns regarding fuel additives in diesel and auto fuels, ethanol etc. However, they have never seen any of the concerns come to fuition. Their research as well as one of their builders (who reportedly did extensive research on epoxies for the fiberglass motorcycle tanks he builds) shows EZPoxys as the best choice for a variety of fuels. Yep, antidotal at best, but I KNOW I had a faliure with the Jeffco. Once fuel got past the Jeffco, the factory supplied strake shells where NOT satuated well with epoxy since they were designed to have epoxy added when installed (EXPoxy or Jeffco), thus it was a short trip to a leak.

 

Now I have to go back and refinish the top of the straks and ad some top layups/micro to make it all pretty. It is REALLY ugly now but is sealing. Wahoo....I hope:cool2: . THEN back to engine testing and insturment installations. Heck, if I can keep fuel out of the cabin, I may try to re-install my interior. That would be a personal milestone. Alas, building is accomplished with small goals that hopefully are eventually acheived.

 

Should any be interested in pictures of the really, REALLY ugly results, let me know and I will try to post something.

 

ONWARD........

 

All the best,

 

Chris

 

Edited: Due to fat fingures and small keyboard

[JTest]

G'day Chris

 

We all wish you the best with the repair. It was truely sickening to see the problems the Jeffco created.

 

Glad to here the EZpoxy is going to fix the problem.

 

Jeff

[steve]

pics are good, are thay on you web page ?

[CBarber]

No, not on my website. My site is very cumbersome to update without destroying what is already there. A poor choice of software about five years ago. As a result I have not updated it since Aug of '06.

 

So, I will try to post some here later.

 

All the best,

 

Chris

[JTest]

No, not on my website. My site is very cumbersome to update without destroying what is already there. A poor choice of software about five years ago.

Chris

G'day Chris

 

Would you be so kind as to tell us the software so we don't buy it? Thank you in advance.

 

Jeff

[CBarber]

The software is called SiteSpinner by Virtual Mechanix.

 

It allows a graphical interface to do html in a somewhat straight forward manner. The real problem is that it saves all the paths for objects and pictures mapped through your hard drive, not a central location (yeah, I could of, should of done it myself). In the last few years, I have lost a hard drive and a entire computer. I actually recreated the site on the second computer. I know if I was more savy, acutally wanted to devote the time I could likely work around a solve the issue, but the reality is I would rather build...or for that matter do about anything else that mess with it. Funny, but in the late 80's/early 90's computers were one of my hobbies....not anymore, they are just a very useful tool.

 

So, I really can't "blame" the software, it is just the way it works and would be a real pain for me to decifer. I do want to update my page, maybe I will get motivated once the project is past this pesky little fuel strake issue.

 

All the best,

 

Chris