Removing gas tank questions

[wwishart]

Hello I wanted to remove the tank behind the bench seats but I was wondering how to do that and how to switch to the two under the bed. Or do I even need both? Can I just have one? What the difference If I have one as opposed to 2? And finally how do I check to see if the tanks under the bed still have gas in them.??? I don't know much but I do know you don't want 40 year old gas getting up in that engine thanks guys.!

[TNIceWolf]

One tank will work fine in most situations. But there are benifits to running dual or multiple tanks as well. For one thing it increases the cruising range of the vehicle. You can move further between fuel stops with multiple tanks quite obviously. In these days of high fuel prices you can gain a second benifit even if cruising range isnt an issue. Filling up two or more tanks on cheaper fuel can have an effect on your overall fuel cost per year that isnt something to sneeze at. As far as determining whether the tanks have content to them....be it fuel or water....just crawling under and rapping on the tank with the handle of a screwdriver will tell you something just from the sound. A empty or mostly empty tank will make a hollow sound where a partially of filled tank makes a somewhat duller noise. As far as having 40 year old fuel in the tanks....I would say that the odds of that are pretty extreme. Not impossible....but the probability is small. And if there is 40 year old fuel in the tanks you dont need to worry about it ever getting into the engine. After that amount of time gasoline turns into this rubbery gooey mass that is no longer liquid at all. Something I learned restoring an old WWII era Army tank.

[colnago]

Something I learned restoring an old WWII era Army tank.

Oh, man, I want pics of that! I almost bought a Korean-War-era M131 Jeep, but ran across my '67 F250. However, I still have an interest in the military vehicles. A tank would be an enormous undertaking. You can't exactly go down to NAPA to get a new fuel pump!

wwishart,

I also want pics of your front dash. If everything works, you should have a sending unit in each tank, but you only have a single fuel gauge on the instrument cluster. However, you'll have a selector switch so that you can "send" the signal from any of the tanks to the gauge. The switch under your seat only controls which tank is going to the engine. For example, you can be running from the main in-cab tank, but show the fuel level from the driver-side aux tank.

It sounds like you have three tanks (in-cab, driver aux, and some mystery tank). I also have three tanks (in-cab, driver aux, aftermarket passenger aux). I have a "chicken-head" rotary switch on my dash to check the level of each tank. There don't seem to be very many trucks out there with three tanks, so I would very much love to see a photo of your dash with the tank selector switch on/under the dash. Is it a toggle switch, or a rotary switch, or ...?

Joseph