Gas makes the world go 'round

Hey! Glad you made it!

The past few weeks have been a blur. There is so much going on right now, it’s hard to keep track. When things get busy in life, luxuries take a ‘back-seat’ to the more important things. And as much as I hate to admit it, the progress on the truck has slowed down some and is going to slow a bit more over the next few months. So, bear with me - work on the truck, more than likely won’t come to a stand still, but there is only so much I can write about sanding, which I am getting done as you are about to find out….

On the eve of the progress slow down, the past two weeks have seen some measurable progress. We finally got into the fuel tank modification and relocation. Rich and i were a bit hesitant but I knew it could be done because that is how gas monkey garage modified the Frankenstein ford. Although I saw it done on TV that doesn’t make me any type of expert. Before we removed the original fuel tank from inside the cab Rich wanted to be as sure as he could be that the fuel tank relocation was going to work. As I said, quite a bit of forethought went into the fuel tank relocation. We first decided where the best placement of the filler neck would be. We both decided that the most ideal option would be putting the filler neck / gas cap into the rear drivers side quarter panel. Below is an excerpt of a blog where I mentioned the fuel tank modification.

March 11th Blog “Huh?!? I can’t hear you!” I mentioned the fuel tank modification in case you missed it here it is:

“Rich and I discussed the placement of the fuel tank filler neck. We

are going to move the fuel tank from the cab to the back of the truck.

This requires some forethought. The door to the filler neck was donated

from the 1989 F250 Rich has, the same truck I got my seat from. This

conversation was lengthy; I (obviously) have never done anything like

this, so my imagination was working in overdrive. Trying to imagine

how the bends in the filler hose had to be to make it to the fuel tank.

Not only do the bends in the hose have to be correct, we also have

to ensure that there is enough room under the bed for the tank.

The door to the filler hose is going in the rear drivers’ side quarter

panel. We think we have a decent plan laid out.”

So, after all of the thought, drawings, and mock-ups; we ‘pulled the trigger.’ We began by disconnecting the original fuel tank. It wasn’t difficult, it was six bolts if my memory serves me correctly. The tank was resting in a V bracket, so the bottom was very secure, as was the top with four bolts.

As you were, we did not begin by disconnecting the original fuel tank, we began by buying a Chevy fuel tank that would fit in between the two braces in the chassis. In all of the thinking we has decided to put the tank in between two chassis braces, although one of the braces needed to be relocated err thrown in the scrap metal pile. We then started to take measurements, because the chassis brace that was disposed of needed to be replaced, in a different location. We checked for clearance issues, we made sure the new tank had all of the inlets and outlets we needed.

We now have all of the measurements we needed, we could begin to mock up the tank in its new home. We made a new brace out of square tubing. We cut the tubing to size, and put it into its new home. Everything is shaping up nicely. All of the time spent thinking about the location, size, dimension etc of the fuel tank is beginning to pay off. We put the floor jack under the tank, with a short 2x4 in between. We jacked up the tank into place, it fit like a glove. We made marks where the two bolts (one on either side of the tank) that were going through the rear brace. Those two bolts were going to hold the straps that are holding the tank onto the truck, they’re kind of important. The other side of the strap is being welded to the new brace. The metal straps go underneath the tank and bolt into the rear chassis brace.

You can see in the photo where the two holes are, on either side of the chassis, they’re the ones that have been ground, that is where the original chassis brace was.

That's all I have for now, next time I hope I can report that we were able to get to modify and create a new gas cap / filler neck fuel door.

Until next time -