I've always had dramas with my Long Ranger tank getting hung up on rocks. I can't say I was concerned about losing capacity or rupturing the tank but I found it was often lifting the back wheels off the ground. This was obviously a problem. Since I've been doing a heap of work on the zuk (lifting the rear floor, chassis work etc.) I figured it was time to raise the tank to get some clearance back. And since I was working on the tank I thought I'd do away with my external fuel pump and turn this thing into a proper EFI tank. I found I was often not really getting the total benefit of the extra range as I was too scared of starving the HP pump. So while the tank is "open" I'll be adding a combination in tank pump/sender and swirl pot from a VR commodore tank.
Enough with the chit chat, here's the pics.
Here's the tank in stock form. You can see the rock rash. The drama with lifting the tank is the short section you see extending from the back. This bolts hard up to the rear CHS cross member. To raise it I had to lose this bit.
Here she is cut ready for a new panel. You can see how beat up the bottom is. Nothing compared to a stock tank but the sheet thickness is 2.5mm as opposed to the coke cans used to make stock tanks. I used a ball peen hammer to get as much of the shape back as possible. I then tac welded the bottom edge to the work bench to keep it straight while the new panel was welded in.
Heres the capacity lost after the cut. It works out to around 6 liters.
Rear panel welded getting the leak test. You can see where I've marked out to remove the filler neck and pump flange. These now clash with the chassis rail. They'll be moved up once the swirl pot arrives.
The next two shots show the tank at its stock height and then at it's new height. I gained about 100mm.
Here you can see it's placement. It sits around 5mm off the shock tower. It mounts to the under side of the tower RHS with M10 rivnuts. Each has a pullout of 250kg (2.5kN). For the rear I'm going to fab two mounts and weld to CHS cross member. These will bolt to angle mounts welded to the tank. I'll no doubt run rivnuts here too. All up it will be held in with 5. At 1250kg load before pullout I shouldn't have any dramas. The original tank ran two M12 front mounts and 2 M6 ubolt rear mounts.
Heres the pump and swirlpot setup I'm waiting on (eBay). It's a pretty cool design. The bottom hose to the swirlpot is actually the fuel return line. It shoots a high pressure jet of fuel through the white fitting back into the swirl pot. This jet draws fuel from the bottom of the tank via a venturi effect into the swirl pot. As a result you can run the tank practically dry before starving the pump. As I want to seal the tank with POR15 I'll have to cut a permanent access hatch into the top so I can fit the swirlpot after sealing. Otherwise I'm pretty sure the sealer will block up the venturi.
Thats enough for now. I thought for once I'd actually post up some of my own work rather than comment on everyone elses.
