Alternative gas tanks for J truck

[MJMadness]

The gas tank in my 76 J10 has quite the Exxon Valdez thing going on...

Looking around it seems that BJ's probably has the best deal for a plastic replacement, which will run me about $320 US to my door with the sending unit. I'm in Canada, my frozen Pesos do not go as far as Greenbacks, and shipping is a killer on large items...

Has anyone found a decent plastic tank from another application that would fit well? My fuel gauge is NFG anyways, so I'm probably going to buy an aftermarket gauge, thus sender resistance range is not a big deal as long as it is a 'normal' range. I can get a plastic tank/sender/pump (I don't need the pump but it could make EFI easier in the future) from the junkyard here for not a lot of money ($100 cnd or less, I'm a volume customer).

[tgreese]

Have you dropped the tank yet?

I have had good results repairing steel gas tanks using the Hirsch tank sealer. http://www.hirschauto.com/ALCOHOL-RESIS ... tinfo/GTS/ For me it was an all-weekend job in summer weather, including the prep and sealing the tank. There are several products on the market that have good reviews, including this one, RedKote, and KB. I would avoid the POR-15 kit (MCU paint AFAIK). You can find horror stories and good results for all these products if you search, but my feeling is the Hirsch stuff seems to be the most accepted among the automotive restorer community, and the POR-15 has the largest number of horror stories. The motorcycle guys seem to prefer RedKote. Just my impression ... it's been a few years since I did this, but at the time I read everything I could find on the topic and all the reviews I could find.

There are lots of old posts about a tank that will fit where the spare tire is now. I don't think anyone has found another tank that will fit in the factory location ... maybe no one has tried, since replacement tanks are available.

Pretty sure BJ's is selling the MTS tank. If you were in the USA, you can usually get a better deal from a retailer (BJ's) than sourcing direct form the manufacturer (MTS), since the manufacturer will ask retail prices to protect their retailers. However, MTS may have a Canadian distributor that can get you a good price on a tank without the punitive import taxes Canada charges. Might be worth a call.

[ClovisMan]

I prefer the one's from Dos XX's.

[j10jim]

Mounting a 31 gallon Suburban tank in the back of the truck where the spare goes. Should have it done next weekend.

[MJMadness]

Have you dropped the tank yet?

I have had good results repairing steel gas tanks using the Hirsch tank sealer. http://www.hirschauto.com/ALCOHOL-RESIS ... tinfo/GTS/ For me it was an all-weekend job in summer weather, including the prep and sealing the tank. There are several products on the market that have good reviews, including this one, RedKote, and KB. I would avoid the POR-15 kit (MCU paint AFAIK). You can find horror stories and good results for all these products if you search, but my feeling is the Hirsch stuff seems to be the most accepted among the automotive restorer community, and the POR-15 has the largest number of horror stories. The motorcycle guys seem to prefer RedKote. Just my impression ... it's been a few years since I did this, but at the time I read everything I could find on the topic and all the reviews I could find.

There are lots of old posts about a tank that will fit where the spare tire is now. I don't think anyone has found another tank that will fit in the factory location ... maybe no one has tried, since replacement tanks are available.

Pretty sure BJ's is selling the MTS tank. If you were in the USA, you can usually get a better deal from a retailer (BJ's) than sourcing direct form the manufacturer (MTS), since the manufacturer will ask retail prices to protect their retailers. However, MTS may have a Canadian distributor that can get you a good price on a tank without the punitive import taxes Canada charges. Might be worth a call.

I did not drop the tank yet. This is a pretty backburner project. The tank was 'repaired' with probably one of those fiberglass like repair kits and it's hard to say how bad it actually is, other than the previous repair is leaking, and that was with only throwing 5 gallons in it.

I'm not interested in using the sealer products as being in Canada we have different laws/regulations regarding what can or can't be sold regarding chemicals, so often products I purchase here that are branded the same are not actually the same as what is sold in the US, and it makes it very hard to know how well a product will actually perform.

I dragged up posts on using a few good backup options for rear mounting a tank and may go that route, but most of them were steel tanks (some of which I can get cheap if Rockauto has them in a warehouse on this side of the line, the S10 Blazer one is a good option). I can also get a 97+ XJ tank out of the yard here, and they're plastic, and I believe they're 20-270ohms sender resistance. I would need to look at the fill neck if going that route, but it might be worth looking into a bit more.

I'll call MTS.

[MJMadness]

Mounting a 31 gallon Suburban tank in the back of the truck where the spare goes. Should have it done next weekend.

Are you going to throw some pictures of that up when you get it done? Curious to see how easy it all winds up.

[j10jim]

Will do. Cutting the rear brackets to mount the straps up. Then setup the fuel filler. The suburban tank exits to the right side behind the tire. When I had the truck painted we closed up the original fuel filler location. Have a neat idea for the filler. Hopefully this weekend will get most of it completed

[BIG D JEEP]

Where in Canada are you . I have a good tank in Vancouver BC . Just pm me

[shawnszj]

I'm in Ontario and have a good used original tank $100.00

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

[MJMadness]

I'm in northern BC.

Leaning towards pulling it into the shop an assessing how hard it will be to do an XJ tank in the rear. We just got another 20" of snow, so this is even more back burner.

[MJMadness]

Going full circle on this, can a 1980 tank be made to fit? The filler is on the end rather than the side, but I'm thinking that can be dealt with. Is it dimensionally reasonably close otherwise?

[littleblackjeep]

Will do. Cutting the rear brackets to mount the straps up. Then setup the fuel filler. The suburban tank exits to the right side behind the tire. When I had the truck painted we closed up the original fuel filler location. Have a neat idea for the filler. Hopefully this weekend will get most of it completed

Any words of encouragement or pics for how this turned out?

[jpswapmohn]

I would first drop and inspect. I had what appeared to be a bad leak that was actually a small pin hole in a line. It was throwing what looked like an enormous amount of fuel running out under the tank. I am fuel injected, so it was high pressure. Not sure if the same would be true on a carborated setup.

[MJMadness]

I would first drop and inspect. I had what appeared to be a bad leak that was actually a small pin hole in a line. It was throwing what looked like an enormous amount of fuel running out under the tank. I am fuel injected, so it was high pressure. Not sure if the same would be true on a carborated setup.

BIG D JEEP gave me the tank from an 80. Next time I'm home I have to swap a clutch on my MJ and do about a day of odd jobs on it, then I plan to roll this thing in and make that tank fit. The tank that's in there is hooped, I watched it drip from where it was 'repaired.'