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Aux Fuel Tank for Suburban

S

Spur

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I'm in the midst of swapping a 12v Cummins into my '91 'burban. I'm swapping out the stock tank with a 40 from LMC. It helps a tiny bit, but I would really like another 20-40 gallons of tank capacity.

I've searched the forum for a while, but I haven't found anyone who has successfully put an aux. fuel tank in a 'burban. Can the side saddle tanks be fitted? I guess I could get a custom tank built that would fit underneath, but that gets pricey real quick. Any ideas?

Thanks.
 
i saw one a few years ago that had 2 aftermarket tanks where the saddle tanks would be on a pick up, and the filler were out of site in the wheel wells.
 
Fancy meeting you here, Spur. LOL.

I'm in the process of hacking an Isuzu trooper tank to fit the Subbins. I don't have enough room for a GM saddle tank, unfortunately. Already too much crap under there.

Your build looks great, BTW.
 
Thanks Czechsix. Good to see you around these parts.

If you get around to it, I sure would like to see a post on what you're doing with your trooper tank. I've got a lot of crap I'm trying to fit on this thing too. Air tank, water tank, aux fuel tanks. I need to know what all my options are, so that I can figure out where all the puzzle pieces go. :)
 
Jason4x4 said:
i saw one a few years ago that had 2 aftermarket tanks where the saddle tanks would be on a pick up, and the filler were out of site in the wheel wells.
Click to expand...

When you say you saw one, do you mean in person or a thread here on the forum? I sure would like to find some pics of an install. I don't fully understand where they would be installed on a suburban.
 
i saw one, my auto teacher took them out of his suburban, they were probably 15 gal each. one in front of each rear wheel
 
Anybody got any pics of this? I need an aux tank in my burb for a two tank waste oil setup and I don't want to put a tank in the cargo area.
 
Found a couple people talking about a downey offroad tank, talked about filling through wheel wells, etc, but then I read where downey went out of business so you might look for maybe a vendor or something that has one in stock, most of those were on yota's etc though.
 
Looking at LMC, there are a couple options:

16 gallon or 20 gallon

Would either or those work?
 
I'm thinking the side saddle tanks won't work for my application anyway. Having the fuel filler inside the cargo area would be impossible on my truck. I guess I could relocate the filler somehow. Hmmm. Any suggestions?
 
Guess that all depends on the tank design. For me, I've got plenty of room in the rear wheel wells, so I'll be running the fillers into them, and run some kind of protection too. I do want to have fillers on both sides too, even if the tank is only on one side. Other ways to do it that I've considered have been old air tanks from semi's - they're small, and with some hacking would do the trick. Capacity isn't great, but from my viewpoint, and added capacity is good capacity. I can't go any more than 600 or so miles on my tank, and I'm looking to double that - which is do-able. Even a 10 gallon saddle tank, and five or six MFC's and I'm pretty much there. I think the Isuzu tank is around 12.5, BTW.

I'll try to take some crappy photos and post the....lol, think I said that before too, eh?
 
Czechsix said:
Guess that all depends on the tank design. For me, I've got plenty of room in the rear wheel wells, so I'll be running the fillers into them, and run some kind of protection too. I do want to have fillers on both sides too, even if the tank is only on one side. Other ways to do it that I've considered have been old air tanks from semi's - they're small, and with some hacking would do the trick. Capacity isn't great, but from my viewpoint, and added capacity is good capacity. I can't go any more than 600 or so miles on my tank, and I'm looking to double that - which is do-able. Even a 10 gallon saddle tank, and five or six MFC's and I'm pretty much there. I think the Isuzu tank is around 12.5, BTW.

I'll try to take some crappy photos and post the....lol, think I said that before too, eh?
Click to expand...

But where is your filler going to be? All of the pics I've seen show people putting the fillers on top of the wheel well, inside the bed of the truck. You're not going to do that in your 'burb are you? That would suck (not be possible) to have to fuel up inside the truck.

I have the same goals. I'd like a 1200 mile range. I'll have the 40 gallon tank, plus two jerry cans. That's about 750. Another 30 gallons (two 15 gallon side saddles) would do it.

And yes, not nagging, but pics would be awesome. :D
 
I'm planning on running the filler necks directly into the wheel wells, so to access the fillers you'd just reach into the well, unscrew the cap, and fuel up. The truck sits high enough that I have no issues with articulation moving that tire way up into the well, so I'm clear in that respect. This might not work for others though. Heck, I've got enough clearance that I'm actually considering running a roof rack support into the front corner of the wheel well, instead of down to the nerf bars. Either way those plans have their side effects though, and I'll probably make that decision when I get closer.

Ok, back to tearing wiring out.
 
OK I did some research and came up with this: an early Bronco aux fuel tank. From what I've read, it mounts below the body and in front of the rear wheels. Can be used like any other fuel tank. Youcan order them with reutrn lines for FI and sending units for the gauge. I've seen a few sites and the tanks can range from 10 gal to 15 gal and almost all are poly tanks. One site has steel extended range tanks, but I think those would hang too far down below the fram e and could get damaged easily.

I'm going to try to get one of these soon to see how they work, but if you guys know someone who has one, or a plce in town that sells them, try to get dimensions or even test fit to see how well they might work on a Burb.

6235.jpg
 
looks like it should work even better than the short bed tanks
Includes lock ring and O-ring. Dimensions 34" x 13" x 8½".
this is the dimensions that the tank on ebay lists
 
Interesting idea on the tank. What are you thinking about in terms of a filler?
 
I'm thinking inside the wheelwell on the Burb as there isnt any room ahead of the rear wheels to install a flush filler and/or door. I had a buddy with a Ford and his was setup inside the wheel well. He just had a pliable fiberglass flap (looked like a piece of old big rig mudflap) that covered the filler neck so dirt and road grime wouldn't get all over it. Just lift the flap, pop the fuel cap off and fill 'er up!

On a K5, you could just graft in a stock fuel neck and filler door on whichever side the tank was on.
 
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