Fitting the Man-a-fre 28 gal fuel tank in a pre 72 rig - pics inside (1 Viewer)

[cruiserdoc]

I have wanted to increase the fuel capacity in my 67 Fj40 for quite some time. When Man-a-Fre started stocking the long range tanks I had lusted over I felt it was time to step up. Unfortunetly the tank is designed to fit post 72 model years. The earlier models have a tool box and transmission humps in the floor board which prevents this from being a drop in fit. In addition the new tank sits higher than stock which makes seat mounting a bit more difficult.

Here is my solutions to the problem and some pics of some issues I ran into along the way

First up is removing the floor board stuff and removing the loose floor liner stuff that got damaged with overzealous use of the grinder

 

[cruiserdoc]

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next up is trimming up the trans tunnel, a portion of the support rib on the driver side also had to be trimmed
Unfortunetly I misplaced the new welded in metal, you can see a bit of the welded in stuff in the last pic. I'll try to locate my missing welded in aftershots later

 

[cruiserdoc]

The tank came nicely crated and protected. It looks great in person

 

[cruiserdoc]

Other things that needed to get grinded off the floor board prior to tank installation were the origional gas tank strap hold down clevisus - I removed all 4. Also I prefit the tank where I wanted it and drilled the holes for it to mount. The tank mounts with 4 x 3/8 bolts and the mounting tabs line up with the body molded support beams in the floor boards. After all holes were drilled I refinished the floor with some new bed liner stuff

 

[cruiserdoc]

time for fitting the tank in to place

 

[cruiserdoc]

With the tank in place it became obvious that I would run in to problems with getting the filler nozzle to line up properly. In the end I had to cut approx 3/4 of an inch from the length of the new tanks nozzle. I also had to cut away the bend in the stock filler neck.

 

[cruiserdoc]

After cutting away I took a piece of 2 inch flexible fuel line to connect both sides. The short 90 degree bend caused the hose to kink. Also not shown in the pics, The stock fuel filler line is slightly larger than 2 inches. I had to cut the metal line and reduce its diameter, then reweld it to get it to fit

 

[cruiserdoc]

My solution to the kinking of the hose was to cut up a 90 degree piece of 2&1/2 inch PVC pipe which was sandwiched around the bend and tightened down with pipe clamps which smushed the kink out and restored a round(ish) diameter

 

[cruiserdoc]

By far the biggest PIA aspect of the install was getting the seats to fit properly. With my roll cage creating head clearance issues I had to build a seat mounting system where my seats sit just a few millimeters off the top of the tank. This close clearance required me to have to modify the fuel overflow hose nozzle by cutting approx 1/2 inch off the top nozzle, retapping the hole in order to seat the NPT nozzle as far down as I could go

 

[cruiserdoc]

With all the hoses in place, the rear winch box installed, and maximizing storage space by keeping my hatchet and tire iron seated against my rear box

 

[cruiserdoc]

I built a custom seat mount out of 1 inch and 1/2 inch square tubing

 

[cruiserdoc]

with the seats fitted, its time to go wheeling

 

[cruiserdoc]

couple more

 

[Fossil]

First off - great information! I have been looking at these tanks for my '65 and I was wondering what it would take to make it fit.

Can you tell me how wide the center section of the tank is? I am wondering how much of the trans tunnel needs to be modified.
Could you have used a filler neck from a newer FJ40 and made things work without needing to cut the tank?