Tow vehicle aux tank. On the cheap.

#1

Last Fall I got a 2000 Ford diesel truck because the F150’s gas engine turned out to be overwhelmed by the 24’ enclosed trailer upgrade. Over all the diesel truck has worked out very well, but one thing that’s been annoying me is the size of it’s fuel tank.

It’s supposed to hold 28-30gal depending on who you ask, but because of a poorly designed vent tube you can only get about 25-26 in it unless you are willing to spend 15min getting the last several gallons.

With the old trailer this wouldn’t be a big deal because it was small enough to pull in anywhere and get some gas. But with the big trailer I not only need diesel, but I need a place big enough that I can get the rig in and out. Plus, the price of diesel varies significantly so it behooves me to ID the cheapest diesel on the route. Ideally, I’d only stop once for diesel and it’d be the place with the best price.

For my first couple events with the new trailer I brought along 15gal worth of gas cans to bring my diesel capacity up to 40gal, but that’s a pretty inelegant solution. So I’ve been scheming on how to do an aux gas tank on the cheap.

On CL I found someone selling a Ford Expedition gas tank w/ fuel pump and got that for $100. Then I put eye-bolts into the bed of the cab and strapped the fuel tank down. Then I plumbed the fuel pump outlet into the primary tank’s filler port, and then created a filler pipe/hose and filler vent for the aux tank. To create the actual filler port I used the gas port from an e30, one of two that were in the attic already modified for a big throated gas “dump jug” for fast fueling during endurance racing. So an e30 gas cap will fit right on. The big throat is significant because a diesel nozzle is large. The truck has a canopy on it. Once the back window of the canopy is opened, the filler port is in your face.

Nothing should leak in the event of a rollover because the tank’s vents have checkvalves.

All I have to do now is wire a switch to the fuel pump and another switch that will choose with fuel level sensor is connected to the gauge. Once the primary tank gets low I just switch on the aux pump and the aux tank fills the primary tank. Should the aux tank go down to empty I have to be sure to turn the aux pump off because a pump running dry will overheat it. That’s why I have to wire in the aux tank’s fuel level sensor.

I’d have taken some pics but it’s not much to look at right now. Right now the focus is just getting it to work. Later I’ll make it pretty. Or prettier, anyhow.

#2

Not bad for $100 and about 1000 hours of labor B)

#3

[quote=“RRhodes” post=70218]Not bad for $100 and about 1000 hours of labor B)[/quote] Which so precisely synchs with the spirit of SpecE30 that it almost brings a tear to one’s eye.

#4

You must be kidding.

This, my friend, is a new low. Do the words “DOT Approved” enter into the equation? Clearly, risk mitigation and resale potential are not on the radar screen.

If/when I upgrade to an enclosed trailer, I’ll add a box to my dually from Northern Tool to get another 40-50 gallons.

#5

[rant]

You mean the government agency charged with protection of the motoring public historically headed up by lawyers and polysci majors? The ones who think it’s okay having truck headlights on the same horizontal plane with sedan drivers retinas? And that it’s more expedient to ask the suto industry to add $2000 and 200 pounds worth of crush zones, air bags, stability, roll over, and tire inflation protection measures to every vehicle sold than to ask the operators of same to learn how to operate them in a way that most of the above are extraneous? Those guys?
[/rant]

#6

I’m just trying to save Ranger the hassle of having his insurance coverage denied when he rear ends someone at 20 mph, causing the spare tranny and/or floor jack to pierce the plastic Rube Goldbergian aux tank, spilling 40 gallons of hazardous materials on the roadway, leaving him to pay for:

  1. his truck
  2. the car he hit
  3. the hazmat crew…
    …all because, like most of us, he checked “none” on the question about aftermarket parts on the insurance questionnaire. :whistle:

I’ll gladly pay for the “worthless” DOT Approved sticker thankyouverymuch.

#7

[quote=“RRhodes” post=70237][rant]

You mean the government agency charged with protection of the motoring public historically headed up by lawyers and polysci majors? The ones who think it’s okay having truck headlights on the same horizontal plane with sedan drivers retinas? And that it’s more expedient to ask the suto industry to add $2000 and 200 pounds worth of crush zones, air bags, stability, roll over, and tire inflation protection measures to every vehicle sold than to ask the operators of same to learn how to operate them in a way that most of the above are extraneous? Those guys?
[/rant][/quote]
I name you soul-brother

#8

[quote=“Steve D” post=70238]I’m just trying to save Ranger the hassle of having his insurance coverage denied when he rear ends someone at 20 mph, causing the spare tranny and/or floor jack to pierce the plastic Rube Goldbergian aux tank, spilling 40 gallons of hazardous materials on the roadway, leaving him to pay for:

  1. his truck
  2. the car he hit
  3. the hazmat crew…
    …all because, like most of us, he checked “none” on the question about aftermarket parts on the insurance questionnaire. :whistle:

I’ll gladly pay for the “worthless” DOT Approved sticker thankyouverymuch.[/quote]
You’ve made a fair point that I’d really not considered.

The thick plastic tank has a fiberglass shield around it. A person could penetrate the shield and tank with a hard swing of an axe, but a sledgehammer blow would probably just bounce off the fairly resilient shield and tank. Nonetheless, a fair point.

#9

F-250 aux fuel tank is operational. It was surprisingly complex with vents for discharge and a vent for filling, the need for a filler system that went “downhill” and handled the flow rate, connecting the aux tank outlet to the OEM tank, the requirement that there be no leakage in the event of a rollover out of the 3 vents and tank inlet, and finally, wiring in the fuel gauge and fuel pump.

And it’s done.

The tank is from a Ford Expedition. It’s hard to see but there’s a fiberglass shield that faces rearward and much of the top surface. That will protect it from anything in the bad giving it a whack.

To my surprising good fortune, I found that the truck apparently had an aux tank once before because there was already a tap into the OEM’s tank’s filler neck. Putting that in was going to be one of the more pita details of the whole effort and there was the port all ready to go. All I had to do was put a hose on the barb and diesel from the aux tank would go right into the OEM tank.

The filler pipe consists of the last 8" or so of an e30 filler inlet with vent pipe, and a plastic pipe I got from Home Depot. The beauty of using the e30 filler inlet is that it already had a vent pipe on it, and it allowed me to cap the inlet with a standard gas cap. Diesel pump nozzles are bigger than gas pump nozzles so normally it wouldn’t have fit, but I’d knocked out the inside of this filler pipe a long time ago because I was going to use it in the race car for endurance races where big “dump jugs” require a wide open fuel inlet.

The last part was the wiring. If you run a fuel tank dry the fuel pump will quickly overheat and die. Therefore I needed to not only be able to run the aux tank fuel pump, I also needed to know how much fuel was in the tank. I’d hoped that because aux tank came from a Ford, the fuel level sensor in the tank would be compatible with the gauge in the F-250. So what I needed was one switch to run the aux tank pump and another switch to click between the OEM tank and the aux tank sensors.

I did a lot of thinking about the kinds of switches I wanted to use. I have a whole drawer of switches from race car projects, and I also checked out Radio Shack, ebay and a couple autoparts store. I didn’t really find what I wanted so I ordered switches from Mouser.

But I got impatient. So yesterday and today I drove on with the wiring using switches I had on hand, as a “temporary” solution. Because I’ve not yet decided on the final switch type, I went with an external box to house the switches instead of drilling holes in the dash.

Of course, nothing worked the first couple of times, but eventually I fought things into submission. The trickiest problems was switching between fuel gauges. The wiring scheme seemed ok, as best I understood how the gauge was connected to the sensors, the wiring itself and the switch seemed ok, but I just couldn’t get it to work. Then finally I figured out what the problem was…The truck heavily buffers the fuel gauge except for when you first start the car.

So in either fuel gauge sensor position it reads correctly when you turn on the car. But if you flip the switch and change to the other sensor, the gauge doesn’t respond.

For a while. If you’re patient, the gauge will start changing to the new reading. It’s so heavily buffered it takes probably >20min to move full sweep if one tank is empty and the other tank is full.

I filled the aux tank with diesel, tested everything, checked for leaks, and all is well. Cool.

#10

McEnroe sees Ranger’s Rube Goldberg fuel system

#11

Steve, the answer is still, no. Sorry.

The fan club is for chicks only and by invitation. INVITATION! Let it go.

#12

This sounds kind of like those old UL labels on the coffee pot or floor lamp. You can wire up your own Rangeresque coffee pot/leg massager, but if it doesn’t have a UL on it and the place burns down due to a suspicious electrical short while enjoying a cup of Joe and a stimulating leg massage, what do you think the lawyers gonna focus on. Right, the Rango-Matic. And the dude who plugged it in.

Odds of your truck bursting into flames and wiping out an entire paddock or Costco parking lot are slim, but you could be one ass-posed dude if it were ever to happen. Don’t do it!

#13

It’s done and it’s very nice. I did a 5hr road trip this evening to pick up a kart for the kids. I started with both tanks full. En route I burned thru a 1/4 tank out of the primary and then switched on the aux tank pump. Over the course of the next 15min I watched the fuel gauge on the primary tank slowly go back up to Full.

#14

You’ve done 8 motors. You can undo this abomination too.

$175 used tank

Seriously, if you ever got pulled over I doubt they would let you continue on your way.

#15

Im with Steve here. It would likely work OK 99% of the time, but in an accident, that could be very bad.

Also like Steve posted you can get purpose built bed tanks for less than you have already spent. Think Safer not Cheeper.

#16

8 motors? Hah. I’m on 14 or 15 now.

Ok, you guys make a good point. I’ll keep my eyes open for a DOT approved tank. The trick will be finding something that can be fully enclosed inside of the canopy.

#17

I just spent a couple hrs looking up the regs. To my surprise it seems to turn out that my set up is entirely legal. Major issues.

  1. Fuel has to come out of the top of the aux tank. Therefore gravity feed is a nogo, there has to be a pump.

  2. Has to be vents and the vents have to have checkvalves so fuel can’t spill out.

  3. All plumbing has to be internal to the vehicle but not in passenger compartment. Running a hose outside of the vehicle into the OEM filler port would be a nogo.

  4. Tank has to have some DOT approval as a fuel tank.

#18

In other news, Ranger changed a light bulb today.

[attachment=1933]scottchangesalightbulb.jpg[/attachment]

#19

that is far to simple of a way for Ranger to Change a light bulb
I have it on good authority that he is Currently developing an M20 powered elevator.
of coarse this will take several attempts at having a working engine
the 1st one had issues because he mistakely bolted an eta head to an i block and bent the valves
attempt #2 he mixes up valves from an m50 and inserts them into his m20 , this takes months to diagnoise why there is no compression, especaily snice he gets distracted in building his own compression/leak down tester.

Im not sure what happened to motor #3 or 4

motor #5 works but doesn’t make enough power , much time is waisted at the Dyno

motor #6 is quite noisy

finally while on motor #7 Ranger says screw it Im just changing a light bulb

his 1st attempt at an m20 powered elavator is to use the Power steering pump to work a hydraulic lift, but he can’t decide on what kind of hose to use

finally he ends up using the entire drive train from an e30, the engine, the trans, driveshaft and diff where he has machined some crasy system that raise’s and lowers the platform, its actually quite crude.

12 years and $125,000 later he has finally goten to the light bulb, but has decided he needs to figure out why the bulb blew in the 1st place. Our Hero concludes that the wires to the light bulb are two small, and not able to carry enough current

E30’s to the rescue, it take a year but he guts every junk yard e 30 of thier wireing harness which he binds together into one massive rat nest that he engineers into wire that should carry enough current to light the bulb

If you have followed me this far you are wondering how this ends. It ends with his kids in indentured servants because his Lawer wife couldn’t legitate out of the mess her Husband made when the building cuaght fire and burned to the ground after the home made harness sparked and ignited his aux, fuel tanks .

#20

OMG can’t stop laughing! You summarized 4,691 posts in one short entry. Well done Brendan!