Early Chimaera Expansion tank mounting to engine block

[Spunagain]

Hi All
I am working on bringing my old Chimaera back to life - see here:
Readers car thread

I have been replacing the coolant hoses and to do that I had to remove the blue topped aluminium expansion tank.
This is bolted to the block with 3 bolts: one short one at the top rear which is not visible in the photo and two long (several inches) and thin bolts with thread on the the end inch only. (The long bolts are pointed to with red arrow in picture below)


It may have only been run off from the hose above but it did look like some coolant appeared to come out of one of the holes.

So my questions - when refitting the expansion tank do I need to put any sealant:
a) between the tank and the block and
b) between the tank and the 2 long bolts

and
c) what should I torque these bolts to? I do not want to over do it as I guess they are bolted into the ali block!

Thanks for your help!

[FoxTVR430]

Hi, I believe that the lower of the two long bolts goes into the water jacket in the block. So I would put sealant on the screw threads of BOTH bolts to be sure.

What torque you ask....... the short answer is I don't know. I would start with nipping them up plus half a turn. If one of them weaps then just tighten a little more. This happened to me after my resto, so I speak from experience. ( Simple home mechanic though )

[Spunagain]

Fab, thanks for that!

[FoxTVR430]

Hi Spunagain,

Here's mine

[Spunagain]

Nice! Puts mine to shame! Did you paint the plenum cover to get it like that?

Is that Cosmos blue as well? If so what is the paint code?

Edited by Spunagain on Monday 13th April 21:47