Gas Tank - feed line help

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I have used a very small snake to clear out lines. It looks like a spring but about 2ft long. I put it on a drill. Used liberal amounts of brake cleaner and other various hazardous things.

Edit. I ran a wire down a spare one I had. Return was 3 or so inches. Feed was over 23 inches (my wire ran out). Looks like it runs all the way to the rear.

Question. What is the history of this tank? If it's been sitting a long time it could be old dried up gas that is blocking it. Have you pulled the sender and looked into the tank?

If it's dried up gas then the only way to properly fix it is to take it and get boiled. All that crap in the tank will eventually disolve into tar and clog everything up again if you don't.
 
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I would also be interested in a big tank..fabbing them in Guatemala sounds like a good idea
C-G......the brass gears are awsome ......thanks again!........have a 12 gal aux but still trying to figure on how to plumb it :(

Lou
 
I'll wait for Lance to decide if he really doesn't want to make any as a group buy or something (he's sent me photos already) since it is his design. I don't want to do anything without his approval and all I have now is his approval to build one for my own use.

If he does decide to do this then I'll ask for more detailed drawings with some dimensions so I can get a good tank on the first go around.

As Lance told me, the tank he made is a little special in that it has an in tank fuel pump. That's not a '55 standard.
 
If we make a run of tanks I'd assume most would be w/o an in tank pump as that would be an unusual item for a piggy.

I'm waiting for Lance to respond to my e-mail since it is his design at this point.

Lou, if you didn't have your trailer hitch in the way could the tank have a larger capacity by having a trapizoidal section in behind? I imagine that the spare almost fits back in the stock location. Would it be possible to put the spare crossmember under the frame rails and clear the tank (as opposed to on top of the bottom rail as is stock)?
 
TANK

I'm sure you could design a tank that way, but at 33 gallons I'm good. As for remounting the spare, not sure if thats going to work and your spare would sit a bit lower. Is anybody having problems, when I hit post repy my text does not show up in the message box, I'm using the quick reply. Look at this pic it appears the crossmember sits pretty high

Lou
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Tanks

My old tank was tossed, Lance at IPOR sent me this picture of Ryan Scotts tank that he cut. I don't think this will answer the original question. The second picture are the vent tubes of my new tank, Lance indicated he set this up just like the factory tank.

Lou
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Trollhole said:
Edit. I ran a wire down a spare one I had. Return was 3 or so inches. Feed was over 23 inches (my wire ran out). Looks like it runs all the way to the rear.quote]

23" + Yikes! If I'm at 10" that's a long way to go. This tank had gas in it (which I drained) but it had been sitting for a while. Maybe it's not blocked the whole way (yeah right have another :beer:).I was hoping not to have to drop the tank because I think I've broken just about every bolt on this truck. The truck doesn't have real bad rust issues but every damn bolt does. The thought of drilling and tapping all the tank bolts and cross member bolts is almost as daunting as trying to go the extra foot and half down the feed tube with a coat hanger/speedo cable.

Thanks for the picture of the inside of that tank Lou. Looks like that's the feedline in the lower right corner of the upper photo. I have my work cut out for me.

:crybaby:
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Tank is out!

First, thanks to everyone for all the help and suggestions. Trollhole hit the mark on this one. This tank needed to come out regardless. This thing was plugged up and nasty. Looks like the gas was trying to turn into some coal looking sludge substance. And the weight of the tank indicated it was packed full of this junk. Now just waiting to see if the radiator shop can clean it all out.

Of course I broke 10 bolts taking it out but it was the right thing to do in the end. I have a buddy that had a '77 parts truck and his tank was in the same shape. Not sure if all the Pig tanks have a propensity to do this or just the ones out here where it gets so damn hot!
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OffRoad Rage said:
First, thanks to everyone for all the help and suggestions. Trollhole hit the mark on this one. This tank needed to come out regardless. This thing was plugged up and nasty. Looks like the gas was trying to turn into some coal looking sludge substance. And the weight of the tank indicated it was packed full of this junk. Now just waiting to see if the radiator shop can clean it all out.

Of course I broke 10 bolts taking it out but it was the right thing to do in the end. I have a buddy that had a '77 parts truck and his tank was in the same shape. Not sure if all the Pig tanks have a propensity to do this or just the ones out here where it gets so damn hot!
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I'm betting they can get it clean. But that will not be the hard part. That would be getting it clean without a million holes in it. Good luck.

If it doesn't I have a spare one that would probably clean up well.
 
Bad news, the tank is too gunked up. With the amount of caustic they'd have to use to clean the tank it would make the walls very thin. Looks like I'm looking for a tank. According to the $OR site, here are the compatible years:

9/69 - 9/71
9/71 - 8/76
8/76 - 7/80

Early tank no workie in my '78. Bummer, this is the final hurdle to getting my Pig on the road.
 
Looks like my tank might be getting plugged too. I was out today and it stalled because of lack of fuel. I thought it was air in the fuel but pumping the primer did not get the fuel flowing. I ended up trying to blow down the fuel line into the tank but I could not get much if any air moving but the pressure must have loosened something as I was able to get the fuel flowing again.

I just filled up the '55 the other day too. It'll be a good 350-400 miles before I can drain the rest of the tank and drop it. I'm probably not having as much trouble as some of you since with diesel I only need to flow about 1/2 the volume of fuel :)

If my tank is not cleanable, I'll enquire about getting the larger tanks made up (after calling Lance of course). If that does happen I may be offering the larger tanks but they would be a one time group buy that someone stateside would need to distribute. There is NO WAY that I can transport a bunch of tanks north.
 
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PabloCruise said:
Sounds like the long range tanks will be mighty popular...

Why is it the 55 tanks plug up?

33 gals for $900 seems pricey. Any idea how much we could lower the cost if we did not do in-tank pumps and did a volume deal?
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I've no idea why they plug up and I have not yet begun looking for pricing on the long range tank either. The first order of business is to drop my tank and see how bad it might be. At least I'm still mobile. Personally, I'd like a BIG tank, even bigger than 33 gallons if possible
 
PabloCruise said:
33 gallons would work for me - 2x the size of the original, and doesn't look like it hangs down too far...

The MAF 45 gal looked like it sticks down a little too far for my tastes.
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can't believe all of that gunk in the tank. How proud is MAF on its price?
 
Anyone have pictures of the MAF tank? I wanted to see how far down it comes.

In researching this issue, one of the other possibilities for a replacement is to have a custom tank made by one of the shops that does tanks for custom hot rods. I looked at a couple of catalogs and you give them the dimensions and they'll fab it up. Not sure the $$ yet but probably in the $600 to $700 range.
 
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