Cheep Plastic Fuel Tank

[Guest Guy]

At work we chuck out 25 litre containers with screw tops, they are used for holding chemicals and don't seem to react to anything, including petrol. Can I use one as a fuel tank? Will the SVA hate it?

[Guest Ant]

Well first thing which springs to mind is "be careful". Some plastics desolve very rapidly in solvents, others more slowly. It may not be a problem over night, but after days, weeks or months of petrol contact you may get problems. Personally I'd want to know for definite that it is petrol proof.

 

Next up is the question of material thickness and strength. Will it survive a stone flying up and hitting it? How about a piece of glass or sharp metal? Would it survive? My plastic tank is 4 or 5mm thick.

 

As for SVA - well I reckon they'll go for anything which looks like it was designed for use as a petrol tank. Anything else and they may request documentation to prove its suitability. Depends very much on who you get on the day.

 

For cheap fuel tanks there is another option recently demonstrated by RHSC on their Rager prototype jeep thingie which was at Donnington show. In the back are two very cosmetically pleasing 5 gallon jerry cans. Fitted with outlets these are ideal! Petrol jerry cans come in various shapes and sizes so there are plenty of options to consider, though you'll be in for a fair amount of plumbing to join together enough for a reasonable tank capacity. My tank holds 30 litres and I wish it was more coz filling up every 150 miles is a pain in the butt. If you do consider this route then don't forget to think about air locks when it's filled up.

 

I fully recommend Chris Gibbon's plastic tanks like mine. You choose the dimensions and fittings. They're competitively priced and very good quality. Check out http://www.christopher.gibbons.btinternet....co.uk/index.htm. His Plastic Tank Man section seems to be down at the moment, but I'm sure if you e-mail him he'll provide the usual tank making services. There are now dozens of Robin Hood's out there with Chris' fuel tanks fitted to them.

 

Ant

[Guest mkeats02]

Cheers Ant,

 

I was considering getting a fuel tank from tiger racing, after seeing ya post I will now check out the link also, and look into that route as well.

 

Mike

[Guest Battery Bill]

We ordered ours from CG and it is very good, I must say we had to ring him a lot to try and hurry it up, he is a busy bloke I suppose.

I wish I had known that we could specify the measurements ourselves as the "Standard" one we have could have been wider at the bottom, and we would have specified a slope to match the sloping chassis tubes of the 2B (bottom of boot).