Belly Tank Build Diary

[Lemming Motors]

Genius idea.

For the electronically challenged could this be achieved with a relay (NO/NC dual pole)?

The funky wire wanders around the engine bay, connected at one end to power / earth and with a fuse in the circuit and connected to the control pins of a dual pole relay. With power on the relay is powering the green light.

Fire causes the funky wire insulation to melt causing a short circuit, the fuse blows meaning the relay switches and the red light comes on - would this work?

[Mike Brown]

Genius idea.

For the electronically challenged could this be achieved with a relay (NO/NC dual pole)?

The funky wire wanders around the engine bay, connected at one end to power / earth and with a fuse in the circuit and connected to the control pins of a dual pole relay. With power on the relay is powering the green light.

Fire causes the funky wire insulation to melt causing a short circuit, the fuse blows meaning the relay switches and the red light comes on - would this work?

That would work but I don't like it.  How about I build you a fire alarm circuit and send you one? 

Mike Brown

[Lemming Motors]

Mike, thats very kind but I am in the UK - could you do a circuit diag with parts identified and I could have a play myself?
John

[Rex Schimmer]

Mike,
Remember John is in Engand which mean he will probably have to use Lucas parts so even if your device is a "perfect" design it won't work! If course it might If you poured warm beer over it.

Rex

[Mike Brown]

The printed wiring board would be very small, are you sure it couldn't be sent in the mail?  I would hate for you to have to pour warm beer on the thing each time you raced. 

[Lemming Motors]

Rex
If working from plans in the UK then the type of smoke needed to energize the circuit would have to be specified as Lucas used a variety of smoke types in its products; I have personally noted dense / white, brown / acrid, and hot / wispy although the source of the former can be confusing.
I had a Mk1 Jag that preformed an interesting trick; all following vehicles disappeared in a very thick very white cloud and it took a while to diagnose that a brake booster seal was leaking and on the over run it inhaled brake fluid via the vac line to the inlet manifold and poof.

Mike
If you wouldn't mind making another circuit board I can provide a NJ address and get it from Andy at some future stage - we work for the same company and occasionally he does a parts mule run for me aka a business trip to the UK.

[wobblywalrus]

It is no problem to send electronics by mail to the UK and back.  Yearly I send some ignition control boxes to Dorset to be reprogrammed with different spark advance curves.  There have never been any issues.

[Mike Brown]

Thanks to everyone for the help.  I will get a board together in the next month or so and then we can determine how to get it to the UK. 

[Mike Brown]

It is no problem to send electronics by mail to the UK and back.  Yearly I send some ignition control boxes to Dorset to be reprogrammed with different spark advance curves.  There have never been any issues.

I have a linear heat detector board completed for John.  Please PM me with a ship to and I will send it out. 

[Mike Brown]

I added a pair of fire extinguisher accesses to the belly tank.  I used a hole saw to cut the access through the fiberglass.  An aluminum plate was riveted on that piece that came out to cover the hole saw kerf.  I machined a brass flush rivet for the 1/4" hole made by the pilot bit of the hole saw.  One of the joys of having a CNC lathe in the shop.  I found stainless steel spring loaded hinges on Amazon, $8 for four hinges.  They worked out well.  The doors simply push in for fire extinguisher or fire hose access.  You hope to never need them but it is better to be prepared. 

[manta22]

Good idea, Mike.

[WOODY@DDLLC]

Sweet Mike! Flames or fire extinguisher decal on or near the doors?

[Mike Brown]

Sweet Mike! Flames or fire extinguisher decal on or near the doors?

Always (mostly) great advice on the forum, I do appreciate the comments.  Woody, my wife owns a Cricket label maker and as soon as I can persuade her we will get some labels made for the fire doors. 

[Rex Schimmer]

Mike,
Regretfully Duke and I have actually used our emergency access opening at Speed Week last year. Literally if we had not had one we could have lost our car. Due to the rapid response of the SCTA guys and the fact that they had access to our engine compartment via the emergency access door they could get extinguishers on the fire immediately. It would have been much worse if they would have had to remove the engine cover (20 Dzus's). For us it was a very timely and great new rule.

Great job on the installation be sure that the extinguisher operator can see well into the engine compartment with the extinguisher nozzle through the hole.

Rex

[racergeo]

   I always put a small aerosol "The Fireman" extinguisher with me along with a Zuss wrench, just in case. It would have taken a good bit of time to get the fasteners out but I did this just in case I could beat the safety team by even a little bit, as fires spread so rapidly. The range of your fire system nozzles seem somewhat limited and if they are empty by the time you have gotten stopped this may prevent further damage.