Thoughts on removing rear gas tank.

Brennamaniac

Brennamaniac

Member
So as stated in my earlier thread I will not be doing this restoration myself sadly. I will also like to say my dad and brother are the mechanically inclined ones along with my brothers friends, I know just minimal knowledge. That is before I started looking up all the information I can about my truck and how to improve upon it, thanks to this site and the internet :tu

My question and thought is, it will be a complete rebuild from the frame up. I have almost worked out all the details of how I want to change the rear end (probably ask questions since this is a completely unbiased group on what you all think later of my changes). My question here specifically is what is your thoughts on removing the rear gas tank. Saves weight, it currently doesn't work (obviously not a big deal for a complete rebuild) and it should improve handling.

My Dad is the sheet metal worker and body guy/painter, he will just take out the tank door and make it look as if it never was there, so the bed will look great.
 
I would fix the rear and remove the front. The weight bias on these trucks are pretty poor. You want more weight in the back if possible. Will help with traction also with more weight in the back.
 
Since he mentioned handling that might be more important to him than traction. Keeping the front tank will make handling and traction more consistent as the fuel level drops.
 
Unless there's some really important reason for removing either tank, I would recommend keeping them both. If you're doing a bumper-to-bumper refurb, just replace the pump & sender in the rear tank and keep it.
 
My truck is currently doesn't have the rear tank at all. The previous owner removed it because it was leaking and never got around to replacing it. When I get finally start my restore/refresh it's definitely getting a replacement. Also if I deleted a tank on mine it would be the front. The front is like 15 or 16 gallons and doesn't get you far in one of these gas hogs. The rear is 18/19 gallon which isn't much difference but still makes a difference.
 
I think the front is a little over 16 and the rear is a little over 18. I came into this knowing 10mph was the best that this vehicle was ever going to do for me, so whether having 2 tanks to fill or 1 doesn't bother me. I understand the convenience part of not having to fill up on gas every day if I have both tanks, but that doesnt really bother me. It will not be a daily driver, or I don't plan it to be.

The traction issue does hold a little stop in my head to think of, fully filled up the back tank weight plus the 8.5 lbs per gallon of gas can be as much as lets say 200 pounds. Can that little of a difference make that much of a affect on the traction of the truck? I plan on line x or rhino lining the bed for a few different reasons, one if I have to drive it in the winter (Southern Ohio here) I can add weight from wood or block.

Other then that, the discussions are to maybe change the rear axle to a 9.75" diff and also going away with the bumper and doing a roll pan (that is for sure). So not much more weight is coming off the back end and maybe a little added with the different axle.
 
Absolutely no reason to change to a 9.75 diff. The 8.8" is stronger than you will ever need.
 
I'm going to 9.75 or plan to, because firstly I want disk brakes in the rear, and of the threads from this site and others it is easiest to just get a new diff. It will be a complete rebuild of the engine with talks of putting a supercharger on it (haven't finalized that yet). Hey, but again this is why I'm coming on here :)

Ok, yeah what I looked up I guess was wrong, 5.75-6.25 is for a gallon of gas, I apologize for the wrong fact.
 
I'm listening man, i'm listening I want feedback here :tu The only two ways besides switching "from" 8.8" to get disk that i have found is get a ford explorer 8.8" with disk or there was some manual way with lots of metal work and fabrication (which I imagine the peeps working on this for me could do it, but they all work full time and this is suppose to be fun for them and not a huge huge pain). So my thought process is if i have to get a different rear axle lets go to the 9.75"
 
Then you are going to have to buy gears for the 9.75 to bring it back to the 4.10 ratio....just to get disk brakes. The 8.8 is plenty strong as it is. Have you looked at the width of the 9.75, the spring perch width to make it sit right on the springs, you are making more work for them.
 
Some of the E-150s had rear disk brakes on an 8.8. That axle would be a bolt in if you found with with 4.10s. Doesn't get much easier than that. If you didn't want to swap the axles you could buy all new parts for the van from Ford and not even have to crawl through the junkyards searching for them. Check out the big brakes sticky in the Gen 1 forum.
 
Read through it and it has some great ideas^ Thank you. I don't know why I never just really looked at the sticky, I just forum searched in the search bar.

Plans have changed because the engine might be getting changed, so talk is about going with a custom rear end made up with the specs needed. Might be going with a crate motor.

Always changing...
 
I didn't see it complete, but saw on a vid where did a fuel cell behind the rear axle and had access from the bed. It would clean up the bed a little more by removing both gas doors and the tailgate handle. free up space in front of the axle for dual exhaust in front of both wheels. Has anyone see this done and any suggestions?
 
I think I said this in one of your other threads, but if you want it to handle you need to put the cell in front of the rear axle to keep the truck as consistent as possible as the fuel level changes. Yes, this will still make it nose heavy, but there are other ways to fix that. Any time you have a weight that will change as you drive it needs to be as close to the center of the vehicle as possible.
 
Yeah, in this thread I think maybe even a little, and that is the thought that I had and we had discussed (removing the rear tank). They are dropping both tanks at first to clean up the frame, paint and such. Right now it is just a idea, the clean look of no gas doors, and having the filler in the bed.
 
The previous owner of my truck one of them I'm not sure which one, probably the same guy that c-notched the frame.

But because of how the two tanks are linked together. I feel like it's created more problems for me. I'm no expert but it literally takes me 30 minutes to fill up the front tank sometimes because the pressure is messed up. End it will constantly kick the pump off in fuel back up and spray out. I feel like that's because they removed the back tank and did not switch out the fuel system to be conducive to one tank. Any thoughts on that?????
 
Jacob_Ford said:
The previous owner of my truck one of them I'm not sure which one, probably the same guy that c-notched the frame.

But because of how the two tanks are linked together. I feel like it's created more problems for me. I'm no expert but it literally takes me 30 minutes to fill up the front tank sometimes because the pressure is messed up. End it will constantly kick the pump off in fuel back up and spray out. I feel like that's because they removed the back tank and did not switch out the fuel system to be conducive to one tank. Any thoughts on that?????
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A tank delete and problems refueling are independent items. The most common reason for fueling problems is the hose inside the filler neck being removed or being routed in some way that it is blocked inside the tank. I would start with pulling out the filler neck and making sure that hose is installed and not damaged or with signs of being kinked.
 
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