No Fuelin'

It's not high tech, it's not pretty, it's not 'trick,' in fact, you very rarely see it, but without it you are fooling yourself if you think you are going to make it down the road--and back home again! The gas tank isn't a sophisticated piece of hardware and you will probably rarely work on it accept for those obligatory repairs or to make a modification. Keep in mind, it's as important a piece of low-tech equipment there is, yet it will make all the difference in the world when it comes to your truck going anywhere.

On our Project Super Sub working on the gas tank was an after thought, in fact, if it wasn't for all the other work on the underside of the chassis it may never have been addressed. Our '72 Suburban was equipped with an aftermarket gas tank that held 45 gallons of gasoline. Yep, 45 gallons, that is approximately 315 pounds of gas when filled plus the inherent weight of the tank at nearly 100 pounds. In the greater scheme of things that's roughly 8 percent of the Subs total bodyweight. Again, it may not seem that much but it becomes apparent with all that weight hanging out behind the rear axle. Simple driving chores such as driving around town, making lanes changes, (hang on) a quick turn, or any abrupt motion and the 'tail wagging the dog' scenario comes to mind. The truck was a handful during the most mundane of driving, especially when it was about half-full and all that gasoline would get to sloshing back and forth. There had to be a fix.

A quick stop by Brothers in Corona, California, lead us to a fix that also proved to give us some options for modification we wanted to make to the truck later down the road--so to speak. Brothers offers a full line of gas tanks from custom to factory fit. There's a custom stainless steel or aluminum model for under bed installation on the '47-55 (first generation) or '55-59 pickups in a 20-gallon capacity, as well as '47-53 Suburban and panel trucks in a stock location as well as the '68-72 pickups in an under bed model that fills through the bed floor. According to the staff at Brothers, a tune-port injection fuel pump can be added to any of these custom tanks.

There's also a factory fit style for '69-72 Blazer's and Suburban's that holds 21 gallons, the one we selected, as well as new mounting straps which are offered as optional equipment. The tank is made from a polymer plastic thereby offering a lightweight replacement for an original tank. The gas tank package that we opted for (PN GTPDO72) included the tank, the mounting straps, and a sending unit. In our case we know that at some point in the future we will need to plumb the tank with a return line (fuel injected engine) and an external electric fuel pump to supply the EFI.

There are also '47-72 gas tank sending units from AC Delco that are sold by Brothers along with '47-72 gas caps (locking and non locking), a '47-72 gas tank filler grommet, a '47-72 gas tank seals, and a '60-72 gas tank covers. In other words, one-stop shopping for your gas tank needs.

How involved is the process--not very. Probably the single biggest thing to remember is to have as little gasoline in the old tank as possible when it comes time to switch. This makes the job a great deal easier and safer.

The Brothers factory fit tank that we selected was capable of using all of the factory fuel lines, filler tube, sending unit, and electrical connections (sending unit). Our swap took little over an hour from start to finish. The hardest part was getting the old tank out as its mounting points went through the factory wooden floor necessitating the removal of the interior carpeting to get at the mounting bolts. The Brothers tank is held in position via factory gas tank-mounting straps with several J-bolts and a couple of standard nuts and bolts.

Follow along with the photos that show both our Suburban and a '67 pickup with a tank mounted re-arward and under the bed getting the treatment. This is a very easy Saturday afternoon project that can yield lots of benefits down the road--and home again.