I have been looking for a gas tank to mount in the bed of my 34 pickup project for about a year, without much success. I did find an old stainless air tank on CL but it is about 14" in diameter and 10 gallons. After getting it home I realized that it needed too many modifications. Plus it ended up looking kind of small behind the cab. So I decided to build my own. First thing I found, were a set of leftover tank heads from a company in Ohio. They were 16" diameter and about the right size. Next on the list was a body for the tank. My first thought was to roll a piece of sheetmetal but I just happened to find a piece of 16" diameter schedule 10 pipe at the s**** yard. Next on the list was the filler neck and gas cap. I found the cap and neck on Ebay. They originally were fitted to a Learjet and the neck was designed to fit a curved wing or fuselage so it turned out to be almost pefect for the round tank. The rollover vent and sending unit were easy to source online. That left the baffle and and a few other custom parts. I drew up the parts I needed on CAD and found a company called sendcutsend.com who took my drawing files and laser cut everything. Now it's just a matter of welding everything up and finishing the truck.
Nice! Wish you were close by. I would love to tig that up for you! I built one years back for a friend. It went behind the back seat on his 32 sedan. Filler neck came out the back on the belt line. Made a flip open door for it. Like to see yours finished. Sent from my iPad using H.A.M.B.
well done.. when the teacher told us how to figure cubic inches in a cylinder I said to myself... why. she told me the equation the does that ? … total divided by 231 gives the contents of the cylinder in gallons... remember, a round tank runs out off gas real quick...
ct1932ford, I wish I was closer too. I'd take you up on tigging the tank. Sloppy j, It took me a while to figure out 231 detail to change volume to gallons. Then it all made sense.
Well, it's great work and you made some real finds in getting all the bits together. I found it a little hard to calculate volume since the ends are domed,but if your cylinder is 30" long, then I get a bit north of 26 gallons. At the height of your mock-up behind the cab, it looks a little to big to me, But, that's just my two cents from the angle of the picture.
A full tank of gas will be more or less 160 pounds, so you'll have probably more than 200 poundswith the tank weight. Shouldn't be an issue, but you'll want to have it pretty securely fastened. That would be a real bomb coming loose on a sudden stop.
I like it!! Kinda what "hot rodd'in" s all about (If you ask me...and you didn't, but still!) Found a bunch-of-stuff and made something cool and functional out of it. You gonna coat the inside of it after its welded? I bet you could scrounge up something pretty slick for mounts and weld those securely to the frame and kinda build the bed floor around it. It shouldn't go anywhere in case of an uh-oh moment. My way of thinking..by placing 200+ pounds amid ship will greatly help traction and handling. Can't weight to see the completed project! 6sally6
The tank will hold a max of 22 gallons if completely full. The gas cap and vent will limit a full load so I'm guessing about 18-19 gallons. A bit more then I wanted to carry but it was about the look of the tank, Plus the curved fuel filler drove the diameter. I cut a pair of saddles when I did the baffle and plan to support everything directly to the frame (not just to the bed). Then some straps to hold it in but I haven't gotten that far yet.
I got the tank heads from a company called Compco. They were blems or leftovers from a job. https://compco.com/products/
Tank heads come in a bunch of shapes (semi-elliptical, F&D, etc...) but with only 2 styles of attachment points. The first is the style I have which is called a joggle. This is where a portion of the tank head fits inside the tank. The second is a **** seam. I ended up having to do quite a bit of relieving around the pipe ends to fit the joggled ends of the tank heads. If I'd rolled the tank body out of 1/8" material it would have eliminated a lot of grinding.
That is a great looking tank that is super solid. We built an airplane and marked the fuel gauge in three gallon increments by filling the tank 3 gallons at a time then had left and right fuel gauge faces printed on vinyl. You could put masking tape on the gauge face to mark the gallons then design a vinyl printed printed face from the masking tape that would show the gallons in increments. The gauge would indicate actual fuel as opposed to height of the fuel with a custom face. The gauge will drop fast when the tank is full, go down slow in the middle then drop on an accelerated rate as the fuel drops to the bottom if it is reading height of fuel. The gallon increments would be further apart on the outside and get closer together through the middle which would make for an interesting gauge.
I might make another p***. The straps sit on the seams so I'm going to wait until I have those done to decide.
The Jalopy Journal
