The gas tank is attached by I believe 8 bolts to sheet metal. It is not
designed to be structural and any additional structural value it might have
would be intrensic. There is no way you would want to place a fuel tank in
the position of accepting body stress as that would compromise its
integrity. Hence the reason there is almost a 2 inch gap between it and
other sheet metal the entire way around it.
The Spitfire/GT-6 gets an incredible amount of its rigidity fromt eh very
strong backbone frame it has. Added to that the strong triple piece sills.
That is where your strength comes from. Not the gas tank.
Patrick Bowen
-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas Braun & Nadia Papakonstantinou
[mailto:dougnad@bellatlantic.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 11:12 PM
To: Bowen, Patrick A RP2; spitfires@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: GT6 Targa
The gas tank itself is a structural element!
Doug Braun
'72 Spit
At 10:10 PM 4/12/00 -0400, you wrote:
>The Spitfire has nothing additional added to it for stiffness. If you
>remove that "bulkhead" you will find out it is cardboard and behind it is
>only the gas tank. The only other structure is the scuttle (the deck are
>behind the cockpit where the gas cap sits) and that provides no structural
>support what-so-ever as most of it is a simple piece of sheetmetal with no
>reinforcement.
>
>I think as far as structure goes, you are fine. Be more concerned with
>quality of work and how well you like it.
>
>Patrick Bowen
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