Aluminum Gas Tank ~ 15 gallons

 

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Tank Mock Up

Aluminum Tank

Tank Installation

Boyd Welding

Now that I had the mock up and drawings completed, I needed an experienced company to make the tank. One of Forum members posted a picture of a tank made for him by Boyd Welding out of Florida. Forget their web site.......spend some time and browse through the pictures on their Facebook page! These guys make beautiful tanks ranging in size from 1 quart to 5000 gallons. And all they make are custom aluminum tanks........

As usual, there were guys who knew guys who heard about the guy who had aluminum tanks crack due to the flexing of the TR6 frame. Along with warnings that bending aluminum to make a bracket  will crack..... so when in doubt go right to the source, which in this case, was owner Dave Boyd. Here's the short version of our conversation:

  • They’ve been in business 7 years and do nothing but custom gas tanks ranging in size from 1 qt to 5000 gallons. The made/sold 10,300 last year and over 60,000 in the past 7 years.
  • Tanks or brackets breaking from metal fatigue is caused by improper materials and poor welding quality. He has not seen this as a problem with his tanks which are built to the highest standards.
  • Tanks are made from .125” 5052 H32 Marine grade high vibration resistant aluminum
  • The brackets ARE NOT bent on a brake. They are 6061 T6 aluminum that is already an angle created by being drawn through a die in the manufacturing process.
  • He was concerned about having slotted brackets and we decided that it would be best left to each of us to drill the bracket holes which will make for the most secure mount.
  • Outlet bungs will be NPT fittings.
  • No need for a Zinc Anode kit in a gas environment but if he was building an inter-cooler tank, you could use one.

I sent Dave the drawings which he entered into a 3D drawing program to confirm that all the measurements "made sense and added up". At this point I've got 16 Forum guys ready to buy the tank and some are already calling Dave Boyd. We decided that he'd build my tank first to confirm that everything fit and then release it for production. So on January 30th I gave Dave the go ahead to build the first tank based on my drawings and measurements. Normally, they go from drawings to completion in 10 business days but.........they got hit  with a 250 tank order from 3 of their largest production customers that had to be done in a very short time frame.......... no problem with me as it's the dead of winter and we got dumped with over 3 feet of snow!

On Monday March 4th I got home about 3:00 PM and a big box was sitting on the front porch......... the tank had arrived. I was very confident about the design fitting and all the mounting points lining up but I was nervous about the filler location due to it being installed on a slight angle to line up with the filler cap and hose.

Now that he's built the tank and understands all the strange shapes and weird angles of everything, he determined a final price of $475 (Part #14020) plus shipping. Keep in mind that a stock aluminum tank from Moss & TRF sells for $620 - $700 plus shipping. He also has a Fuel Injected version that includes an in tank fuel pump for $775 (Part #14021) plus shipping. Obviously these prices are as of March 18, 2013 and could change by the time you're reading this.

Well packed with lots of peanuts

Tank bottom with: mounting bracket - red arrow, two outlet bungs - black arrows and differential cutout - blue arrow. The TR6 has two openings in the tank floor area so no drilling is required.

I found the outlet bung design very interesting. I was expecting to find a "stock" fitting welded in place.

But turn the tank upside down so the outlets are in their normal bottom position and you can see how the design leaves no protrusions in the tank bottom to block fuel from getting out of the tank........fuel will actually pool at these outlets. Very clever design.

Tank Top with: top & side mounts - red arrows, sender mount - green arrow, filler fitting - yellow arrow and blue arrows point to the evaporative return fitting and the fuel return fitting that's needed for fuel injected cars. There are two rolled edges at the tank rear top and bottom.... the black arrow points to the top one.

Beautiful welds......

The moment of truth.......... and it slid right in with no real problems.......had to tilt it to clear the evaporative fitting and then lift it to get the bungs in place. For some reason, the left side had no problem with the top mount but the right side just hit the top mounting point and had to be wiggled in to place. The tank measurements were perfect so it's just a variance with my car..... no surprise there!

The side mounting tabs lined up and hit flush against the car mounting point.
And the worrisome filler neck was perfect too.

This is the top mount and the space is an illusion. There's maybe 1/16" between the two pieces if that much.

They get joined together with this plate which you'll have to drill out for your car....... too many variances with our 40 year old cars to have the holes pre-drilled.

Outlet bung in spot on......... dumb luck was the fact that the overall size of the bung is the same size as the hole in the tank floor. The red arrows point to the existing holes in my floor for the evaporative & the fuel return lines. These will be plugged and re-routed to the hole in the next picture.

This hole is already in the tank floor and will be used for the return lies that need to go to the tank top. That's the side of the tank right next to the hole.

The tank has two baffles as indicated by the red lines next to the peanuts.
My shut off valve fits fine.
Fuel sender flange fits the stock TR6 sender.

The sender arm was bent to allow it to fit when installed on this angle. Dave may move the baffles and/or the sender location to make for a less tight fit.

Another perfect fit.

Let's get this tank installed!............