Date:         Mon, 27 Feb 95 09:08:40 CST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: Gas tank Questions

On Mon, 27 Feb 95 08:12:12 CST Tim Smith said:
>Any chance of fitting a Syncro rear tank into this application? That would
>give another 18 gallons or so. It should work in any 2WD gas vanagon, but
>dropping the engine+tranny to check smells like a lot of work.   tim s.

this is one of the options i was checking into.

the biggest problem was the filler neck for the new tank. well, actually the
BIGGEST problem was the cost. $300 for just the tank. and there are LOTS of
little thingies that attach to the tank, not to mention the fuel gauge sender,
fuel pump, anti-roll-over valves, vent tubes, etc.

why another fuel pump? cause if you don't have some sort of valve or pump,
the fuel in the (higher) rear tank would flow all the time into the (lower)
front tank ... and i think it would flow a lot faster than you could use it!

i suppose you could fix it up where the standard fuel pump would pump INTO
the rear tank, and the engine would always take fuel FROM the rear tank, but
return it to the front tank. that way, you wouldn't need a filler neck for
the rear tank ... just run the pump while filling the front tank (then shut
it off when you fill the rear).

anyway, i couldn't quite get it cheap enough or simple enough, so i put it
aside. i had also "designed" some saddle-tanks, up under the bottom of the
bus, where the camper has its propane and such ... but to get any volume, the
tanks wound up being so long and skinny that you'd have problems if you were
going up any sort of hill.

then i got to thinking: why would it have to be a syncro tank? sure, the
the syncro tank is designed to fit just right, but there's lots of room back
there. you could maybe get a custom-designed tank from some of these motor-
home long-range tank-people. or maybe a 68-79 fuel tank would fit?

all in all, it still came back down to the simplest thing: extra fuel cans.
maybe a new platform bumper or something to carry them on. or a little towed
trailer.

joel
still cogitating.