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No flow was caused by an airlock in the horizontally mounted WTA coils I have on the roofrack. I stuffed around with all sorts of analysis and theories and in the end grabbed the garden hose and push water thru the circuit which totally took the air out but sent a pile of green coolant down the drain. Anyway, pump is circulating at 9LPM at a pressure of circa 5-6psi system resistance. At ambient radiation in the driveway the coils shed around 5 deg, and circa 14 degC with the 4 fans running. The aeroflow pump is rated at 40LPM open flow, so this will give an indication of the actual performance you can get in reality from the claimed specs. I am going to add a ball valve before and after the pump to allow for a more efficient pump isolation and swap out when and if it happens - previous performance with the Aeroflow was poor, but am willing to try it again as have it in hand.
I pulled the previous gear pump out and apart, seems fine, reassembled and then bogged it up to make it watertight, powers up fine, will see if it goes back into service or not.
Noticed the gap between the rear pod and the body has increase by 15mm at the top from bottom. Unsure how accurately it was set up in the beginning, its mounted on a corrugated rubber so perhaps some compression taking place? I dont think there is that much weight in the pod in all honesty. I will have to crawl around and have a look at the chassis, but its already plated inside and out. From a mechanical/structural perspective the chassis plating systems dont do much to bending resistance, more reduce chassis box section stress. I may design up some deeper section profiles and get them cut, ie increase the section depth of the rear chassis rails by say 40mm+ using 8mm plat - will run some numbers to see what the reduction in bending is, will help. Its a mission of a task to execute though - but just time and money.
Started on the drivers side rear chassis stiffener plate. Its 200 x 6, welded to the outside of the chassis rail via dia 50mm hole saw holes, at both ends and stitched along the top. I will stitch the inside plate in the near future to the chassis rail. The weld zone turned out a mess! The mig welds were beautiful, then I got it into my fat head to fill up the centre 'donuts' with body sealer/deadener to fill up the depression - well you can see the result. I think I will let this dry then smooth it off with a top coat, will come up fine. Was speaking with @MB this arvo and whilst the plate extends to the rear side of the trailing arm pivot bracket, he suggested I try to extend further forward. Its a good thought, however there is only 50mm from the top of the chassis rail to the floor, and its congested and busy, so have to think that thru a bit. Hs thoughts are based around the GQ ute has 4 tray mounts, two are in front of the trailing arm bracket and two to the rear. You can see the first POD mount I have which is just behind the chassis bend and the second about 200mm from the rear of the chassis. I am already plated out inside and out in the region, so will think about this further. I am still not at root cause for the 15mm drop of the POD at the rear, will find it in time no doubt.
Passenger side is next, takes about 6 hours start to finish per side.2026-01-17_181218.jpg