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Best ideas fuel cell fabrication. Lets get the diagrams/sketches Posted!

juanblzer

juanblzer

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Okay, I found a guy who is willing to fabricate a custom 30 gallon aluminum cell for me. The price is quite reasonable. He asked me to draw up some diagrams and such as to what I want. Add to this list with drawings and ideas please.
Here are my wants:
*must carry 30 gallons
*must have baffles (I don't know what these look like)
*must use a yj sending unit bracket (square hole that will be tapped so no nuts on the other side. This will preferably be on a removable inspection plate that will be over a sump
*must be able to use my yj sending unit bracket ( I don't actually use the sending unit part just the bracket to hang my GM in tank pump
*I would like to use my current "cork" 90ohm sender from my RCI fuel cell
*must have a sump
*must have a way to pick up fuel on off camber situations and when gas is minimal
*must be able to be mounted to a "cradle" to alleviate stress to the actual cell during highspeed romping, twisty crawling, and the occasional flop.

I spoke to Steve Watson about cells and he talked about the possiblity of a can or somthing that would have a trap door to keep enough gas on reserve to feed a fuel injection pickup. Any more thoughts on this?

I also am toying with the idea of using that Metco lockring so I can use a factory sender and bracket /forums/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

here's what BadDog came up with...
Tank1TopA.jpg

Tank1BottomA.jpg
 
Somebody on here had some drawing of a fuel cell design that had baffles in it and a sump in the center bottom. The baffles forced the fuel to cross the sump as it moved from one side of the tank to the other which would always be filling up the sump. Pretty innovative design. May have been Baddog. Don't remember for sure though. Search through COG. It's there.
 
I'm in the middle of this myself, try to keep it as close to square as possable so it works good on both incline/decline as well as off-camber. I am going to use the Metco ring and just weld it on instead of using the bolts. Still up in the air about the sump do to the irregular mounting it would need, maybe if the baffles are good it might not be bad without one, so far the stock tank works great with no sump.? /forums/images/graemlins/dunno.gif I want to keep mine close to 20 gallons though.
 
My fine paint skills =D.

This is what I always kinda pictured my "dream" fuel cell being. As far as I can figure it would always have fuel. And you could make the chamber as large or as small as you want. I just kinda threw this together.

6885fuel_cell.JPG



EDIT: forgot one thing. You'd have to permanently fix the pick up tube to the chamber or atleast extend it up farther towards the top so it wouldn't slosh out.
 
[ QUOTE ]
want to keep mine close to 20 gallons though.


[/ QUOTE ]
When I drove to Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah and most of AZ 20gallons just didn't cut it. I love driving my rig on the highway and also enjoy cruising down to Baja and going surfing. I can handle about 10 - 15 gallons more with my current springs on the Coilovers.
 
Not me, 20 might be a tad to much, when I need to go that far I have a stock 42 gallon tank in the Burb with leather.
 
Yeah, I'm looking at about 20 gallons too. Much nicer traveling in my HD with ~60 gallons and diesel milleage. Nice to drive coast to coast with 2 fill ups...
 
<font color="blue">Holley makes a dual pickup system that goes inside fuel cells. Its 2 disks connected with rubber hose and a T fitting to the outlet of your cell. Gravity keeps at least one pickup disk sumbmerged in fuel, and they have check valves to keep the dry one from sucking in air. This would eliminate all the complicated baffles. Search Pirates for it, I know there has been a few threads.

Possibly you couldremove the sock from the GM fuel pump and attatch these pickups? /forums/images/graemlins/thinking.gif
 
this part is around $72 from Summit. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
Would it work with an in-tank gm fuel pump?
would be an option...
 
[ QUOTE ]
This would eliminate all the complicated baffles.

[/ QUOTE ] Not really, you would still have to run foam to keep them in place and to keep the fuel from sloshing around. And I want to have baffles so I don't have to use foam.
 
Re: Best ideas fuel cell fabrication. Lets get the diagrams/sketches Poste

The baffles really dont need to be all the way to the top because the fuel wont slosh as much when full. You can also put some half circles on the bottom (like the triangle piece but in the middle)to let the fuel flow better. On my fuel cell I just welded some little U(only welded the bottom of the U so there were two legs sticking out) shape pieces on the bottom, then stuffed the holley type pickups under them and bent the legs down to hold them there. Seems to work good now. My tank dimensions are 65x10x11x.12wall with 2 baffles about 20 inches off each side, and a pickup on each side of the tank. I also made some flanges for the top of the tank. Just machined a groove in the flange that will except an O-ring (700r4 to transfercase adapter) Then used a Universal GM ohm fuel gage sending unit. /forums/images/graemlins/truck.gif
 
Re: Best ideas fuel cell fabrication. Lets get the diagrams/sketches Poste

Right, my point was that you wouldn't just use the Holly pickups with no baffles and no foam. /forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif
 
Re: Best ideas fuel cell fabrication. Lets get the diagrams/sketches Poste

And there is no straight forward way (that I know of) to attach it to the stock pump.
 
Re: Best ideas fuel cell fabrication. Lets get the diagrams/sketches Poste

[ QUOTE ]
Right, my point was that you wouldn't just use the Holly pickups with no baffles and no foam. /forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

<font color="blue">Why not?

The whole point of them is to they CAN move around to follow the fuel where ever gravity takes it in the cell. Foam also breaks down with pump gas, it was designed to be used with race fuel. Plenty of people run the Holley pickups in cells with no baffles or foam. I've been in a Jeep nearly on its side with this setup, he had less than 1/4 tank and the thing kept on idling
 
Re: Best ideas fuel cell fabrication. Lets get the diagrams/sketches Poste

Fuel cell foam breaks down in any fuel, not just pump gas. Depending on the quality of the foam you can figure on 2 to 5 years b4 you need to replace it.

This is the generic baffling I use for both fuel tanks and engine oil pans:
Fuel Tank Baffles.jpg

While I don't seam weld the baffles in either case, I do fit them to the bottom and sides to have minimal gaps. In the case of engine oil pans I bring the top of the baffles up to ~3/8"-1/2" less than the expected height of the oil when at rest. This is so that the oil can flow in over the top of the baffles too. In a fuel tank I bring them all the way to top of the tank since fuel has much lower viscosity. I also close up the gap distance in fuel tanks to 1/4"-3/8".
 
Re: Best ideas fuel cell fabrication. Lets get the diagrams/sketches Poste

The main reason I used the baffles was to add some structure. When the fuel sloshed it could bump the side of the tank out. With the baffles it adds some strength and help the fuel not slosh so much.
 
Re: Best ideas fuel cell fabrication. Lets get the diagrams/sketches Poste

How long is the gm sender (i.e. how deep does the sump need to be)?
 
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