Date:         Mon, 29 Aug 94 23:25:57 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "J. Walker" <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: doughnut spare gas tank

On Mon, 29 Aug 94 23:08:13 CDT <cs@karin.att.com> said:
>As expected, I'm barely getting 320+ miles on a full tank with the
>Vanagon.

yup. that's about my max on a full tank.

>Are there any safe and legal extra fuel tank kits for '87 that anyone knows of?
ok. here's what i've found/thought:
Oettinger (in germany) makes a 100 liter tank for their 6-cyl vanagon. it
will fit all vanagons EXCEPT those with the little heater outlet at the
middle seat passengers feet. BUT! <there's always a gotcha!> it costs
$800 for the tank alone (from their 'distributor' in california).

ok. what else? well, for my one-of-these-days trip to alaska, i still want
more fuel. so, says i to me, what about an extra fuel tank? where to get
and where to put it. (!) <-that's an idea.  since i don't have a syncro,
i could put a syncro fuel tank in the rear, in that big empty hole over the
transmission. then i would have 16 gallons up  front and 18 gallons in the
back.

well, there's still a few problems: putting the fuel filler into the bodywork,
connecting the new tank to the old tank with some sort of remote control
valve (easy enough to find, lots of american conversion vans have this sort
of hookup), etc. only trouble is that the new tank is higher than the old
tank, so i think you'd have to let the new tank feed into the old tank and
leave all the fuel injection return lines going to the old tank (otherwise,
there would have to be some way of switching the pump and return lines).

but it would give me over 700 miles in range. :)  but the syncro tank is
about 300 dollars from the dealer. :(  perhaps another type/brand of tank
could be used.

one of these days ...