August 19, 2007 - Well, it's been a
month since I got to spend a day in the shop, mainly because
I've been busy around the house helping out with the new baby.
I'll tell you...it's a real madhouse around here these days!
If you've been keeping up with the progress, a while back I'd
decided to use a late-'70s Super Camper Special fuel tank on the
choptop. I did some minor mods to the frame to accept it, mainly
moving one of the rear crossmembers forward a little for
clearance. However, since this tank is so tall, I was going to
have to cut a hole in the bed and have the tank poke up through
the bed floor...something I really didn't want to do, but was
going to have to. I was planning on just installing a tonneau
cover to hide it all. However, I hadn't gotten around to
actually cutting it out yet....thank goodness.
I was going to get started cutting that hole in the bed floor
today...but the more I looked at it, the more I was convinced
that I should look at other fuel tank alternatives. The criteria
was that the tank would have to fit completely below the top
edge of the bed and easy to fill...and it had to be done with
parts I had in the shop. (The SCS tank needed a sending unit.) I
considered mounting the SCS tank up on top of the bed floor, but
it's height would've put it really close to the top of the bed,
which would've made a filler tube hard to fabricate and still
keep it below the top of the bed (to clear the tonneau cover).
Then I got to looking at the regular in-cab fuel tank...and
after doing a little thinking on that, I decided to go this
route.
I've had a nice rust-free tank sitting in the attic of my shop
for several years now. So I dug it out and set it up into the
bed. Fig. 01 is a shot of the tank sitting about about
where it would need to go.
I decided to mount it opposite of the way it would mount in the
cab...that is, with the fill tube on the right side, since
fabbing some mounting brackets would be a lot simpler. While it
was sitting here, I was trying to visualize how to set up the
fill tube, to keep it below the top edge of the bed. After some
thought, it occurred to me that I could simply shorten the stock
filler tube and trim down the hose...and it would still fit,
though it would be tight. I'd also have to slide the tank as far
to the left in the bed as possible. So I first trimmed up the
fill tube as short as it would go Fig. 02) and still
allow enough room to slide the hose over it and secure it with a
hose clamp (Fig. 03).
I then cut down the tank's filler neck down to about 1/2" ,
trimmed up a stock hose, put it all back together and then
attached it to the tank, to check for right-side clearance. I
just wanted to make sure there would be enough room to get a gas
pump nozzle into it...though it will be tight, I don't think I'd
have any problems.
So I then got started fabbing up the upper mounting brackets. To
keep the top of the tank parallel to the bed floor and the back
of the tank parallel to the front bed panel, the bottom of the
tank was going to have to kick out a few inches...just like it's
mounted in the cab. However, this meant the upper tank mounting
flange wasn't going to be straight up-and-down. I'd have to cut
some flat steel and slightly bend it to work. I got lucky
though...I had a cover from a piece of heavy machinery that
already had the perfect bend in it, so I simply had to cut the
brackets out to incorporate this slight angle (Fig. 04).
To mount the brackets to the tank, I decided that using a J-nut
would work best to allow future removal for whatever reasons. So
I drilled a hole in each bracket and clipped a J-nut on each one
(Fig. 05).
Then I set the tank back into the bed to contemplate my next
step, which would be drilling the upper mounting holes in the
brackets and front bed rail (Fig. 06).
However, as I was sitting back admiring my handiwork, I noticed
that the tank was hitting the stake pocket on the left side (Fig.
07), and wasn't allowing the tank to set all the way to the
left.
Since the filler neck clearance was really tight on the right
side, I decided I needed to get this slid over as far as
possible, meaning I'd have to trim the stake pocket for
clearance. I didn't want to cut the pocket completely out, since
I have plans for them in the future. I decided that I could just
trim it up a bit for clearance without sacrificing it's
structural integrity much. Fig. 08 is a shot after
trimming it and trial-fitting the tank again.
OK, the tank was setting as good as it was going to get. All
that was left was to drill the mounting holes in the brackets
and bolt the tank down. I marked and drilled the holes in the
brackets, and then bolted them to the upper front bedrail (Fig.
09).
All I had left to do was the lower mounts. I'd decided to just
use the factory in-cab tank mounts, which double as the rear cab
mount plates. All I had to do was mark and drill one hole for
each plate on each side and bolt them down to the bed floor,
shown in Fig. 10...and then bolt the tank in for the
final time (Fig. 11).
It's now very solid and fits below the top of the bed, so it'll
be completely hidden once the tonneau cover is installed.
Whenever I need to fill up, I simply have to lift that corner of
the tonneau. |