Finally able to get a breather for a couple hours. I have a few days off between my next final for school so I spent some time in the shop after work to finish an idea I had.

If any of you are on Instagram, check out Chassis Fab. Awesome page of all kinds of trucks just slammed to the ground. They fabricate some custom fender wells that are a little unconventional, but very appealing. More of a show truck fender well, so I took the traditional route, with a little twist inspired from these guys.

I sketched up a pattern, first cut it out to see the dimensions in actual size. modified a little, then I ran a punch program to get the outer of the tub.



Next I pulled out the dimple dies and pressed in the flares. I then took a two inch band and bent it on the roller to the radius of the tub. Tacked it in place and TIG welded it together. Ground and orbital sanded, and Bam! I have a couple of mini tubs.



The size is about 26" at the widest by 11" tall. The radius of the large diameter is 16" with 7.3" for the smaller radii that help taper off the fender. 2" dimple dies on a 13" radius referenced from the same spot as the large diameter. Just some info incase it inspires you.

I have a couple things to do before I decide to cut up the actual bed, but I wanted to install those so I can run a wider tire in the future. I'm also planning on making my lifting bed frame for the wood floor between now and the beginning of January so I can get the wood back in.

As far as mounting, I will bolt them in to the side of the bed. I'll have to weld on some tabs on the inside of the tub, as well as some flanges on the bottom to complete the finished look.

I kind of spontaneously decided to make these tubs so I can have a better idea of how I will need to clearance the bed floor. I'll get some pictures up by the weekend with it in to see how they will look.

 

Great work

 

Got some more time on the mini tubs today. Didn't like that they looked unfinished without any flanges for the bottom. I still have to make up the mounting tabs, but heres some progress.

I bent up a 1.000 tab on the brake and welded it to the backside of the tub on all three sides. I then tacked in a small square to complete the transition between the tabs. I still need to metal work it a bit to smooth is all out.







Put some beads down on the edges just to give it a bit of an fabricated look.

 

Beautiful!

 

Hey everyone,

Here's an update on the fender wells. I finished them up and put some mounting tabs on them. I'm going to bolt them in, finish up the bed floor and frame before I do any cutting.

I took the truck through the neighborhood to go pick up some spray paint for the fender wells. All I can say it there seemed to be some sort of squeal coming from the rear of the truck every time I put my foot on the gas. Weird




Theres a shot with them finished.

I just mounted them with some of my welding magnets that I used to square stuff up. I'll be bolting them in soon enough.





Gas tank is all drawn up. One of the machinists at the shop offered to make my fuel sending adapter for me on his CNC. One less thing I'll have to make up for it. I have all the little parts list I need. I'll order those at the end of the week.

This week I'll be working on bed frame. The shop is slow since everyone is taking vacation. I'll need a little help setting up the bending for the gas tank. I want everything to fit just right so I won't have trouble welding it all up. So I may wait on setting up the first part of the gas tank.

Chugging along. Thanks for checking it out!

 

Is that squeal accompanied by smoke ? That is normal and nothing to be concerned about.

 

Somehow I missed the updates when you started on the mini tubs, but man do they look great! Keep up the good work, I'm jealous you get to drive yours, even if only around the block.

 

I just found this post. Don't know how I missed it but for it's length and my A.D.D. Binge read it and now my butt hurts. Had to remind myself every couple of posts that this is a young man, attending college, working, and doing great things to this truck. I think I just saw a unicorn! I mean that in the best way possible. Here is to your success in all things you aspire to do!

 

Got a few minutes this weekend to finally bolt in my tubs. I'll see how I like them before I commit to cutting all the precious metal away from the bed.



I have tomorrow off of work, so I'll try to get some of the tedious stuff I've been avoiding done on the truck. That includes figuring out a small c-notch and flipping some bolts that would be restricted if I welded in the rear sway bar tube.

I started the fuel cell this week at work. It'll hold about 22 gallons. It will be baffled side to side and front to back to prevent all the fuel slosh. Unfortunately the welder I'm accustomed to using went out during a side job I was doing. I had to fire up the different one and haven't quite figured out the settings on that one quite yet. The new welder uses symbols instead of print, so I have yet to figure out the new "simpler" machine. So unfortunately I was fighting my own ignorance of a new machine and frustrations due to that. My beads weren't as pleasing as I would like. So I called it quits for a while until I put a new torch on the welder I'm used to using. Planning on resuming next week.



I ordered some fuel fittings. They include a filler cab with a nicely anodized cap. Unfortunately it came scratched, but it will wind up that way inevitably so I'll just hang onto it. The other parts are some conversions from NPT to AN fittings. The bungs have a small relief/flange on the underside to help them line up in the tank for welding. I had the top holes in the cover punched for the 1" OD and the 0.93" holes. I had the center hole punched to 3.25" so I can mount up my fuel sending plate once the machinist is done with it. That also has a relief to help line everything up. The fuel neck is 1.80" or so. All hardware came from summit racing! Love how quickly I get stuff from them to my door!

I bought a 3/8 NPT bung that will hold the fuel pickup hose. The pickup hose is from Tanks Inc, seems to be a very rigid plastic that is shrunken onto the end of the aluminum fitting. I'll trim it down to length. The tube inside the tank will be over a small sump that will be lower than the bottom of the gas tank. It will be easier to collect fuel and it will make sure that I won't ever be drawing up air unless I really run the tank completely dry.

The other fitting is a 8 AN fitting that will be for the roll over vent. The blue anodized piece is the roll over vent. I'm very happy with how these fittings look, but I will get my buddies over at the plating shop to strip the blue and get them black anodized to match every other black anodized part on my truck.



To be honest, I'm not quite sure how this roll over vent will work, but I'll do some research and see how I can best utilize it. Coming back from a NYE party this morning there was a sedan that crashed and was upside down on fire right in front of me. Luckily the driver wasn't hurt and me and a few people that helped were able to keep the flames down with some dirt while the driver was being helped out. But in retrospect, I realize spending some extra time and money in a few safety items in my truck can make a huge difference if there is ever an accident.

 

Got some time in the shop today for the fuel tank. Seems as if my troubles with the welder was just bad technique and not the machine.



In between running some pars on the punch press, I snuck over and measured the area where I wanted to run the baffling. I decided on 9 different areas with 0.750 holes scattered all the way around. I have 0.750 clearance on bottom and top of the baffles as well. I left some extra room for the fuel sending unit float to have enough clearance to move without restriction from the baffle.



I got the baffles welded in and worked on squaring up the top of the tank. The tank did warp a bit with the baffles and fully welding the bottom seams, but some clamps and a little massage work I was able to get a good overlap/gap in between the top panel and the sides to lay some tack welds down.



Unfortunately, I walked right out the door this morning without grabbing the weld in bungs! Left them right on my desk next to the keys but didn't remember until about half way to work.

I'll get those welded in tomorrow and finish welding up the top. I'll draw up a little sump and get that bent up and welded in as well. I'm unsure if I would like to polish the tank at all, leave it natural, or maybe go over with the orbital sander with a scotbrite pad.

Next I'll do some pressure testing. I may buy some fittings/plugs to help with that just so I can get an accurate test of any pressure lost and see if I have to weld up any leaks. After that is complete I'll take it home, mock it up in the truck, then bend up some sheet metal for a mounting solution. I'll make sure to have some clearance for the tank to move in case of the frame flexing. Last thing I would like is the weld cracking due to some stress.

 

So I finished welding up the tank! Still have to pressure test it all, but here is an update.



I had the top tacked up pretty well and was able to put some decent beads down on the top of the tank. I think what I really need to do is set the amperage to a limit prior to starting. right now I tend to just control it by how much I push down the pedal. I may be able to get a more consistent pattern if I am able to stay at a constant setting with my foot all the way down. I tend to push the pedal down further as I weld along a seam. It just makes for an inconsistent pattern at times.



Here's the sump for the pickup tube. I welded that one up and welded it into the bottom of the tank. It works fine, I noticed that my placement for the pickup tube was off. I wanted it to be centered in the sump, but forgot to dimension the cutout for the sump correctly. Good thing is, the pickup tube still is in the sump.









I got all the fittings welded in nicely. The filler neck and AN fitting welded in great! I had a little trouble with the 3/8 NPT fitting. The fitting seemed to flow on me very easily while the sheet metal needed more heat. I had a very difficult time starting the puddle and adding in rod because of that. However, given my lack of expertise, I can't verify if it was the fitting or me
(Also, don't mind the roll over valve, its a remote valve so I know it wont work properly if I leave it oriented like that in the top of the tank )

This is the fuel sending unit mounting plate. I called auto meter and they sent me some files with the dimensions of the sending unit. The machinist at work offered to help me out and programmed a very nice plate. Only thing wrong was the threads. Auto meter told me it was a 10-24 thread, I pulled the bolts back out of my old tank today, and they were a 10-32 thread. Oh well, getting 5 bolts isn't that big of a deal.





The process of making this started with a 3.500 square block 0.500 thick. It was surfaced, tapped, profiled to 3.500, then given a flange with a 3.250 diameter 0.090 deep. The flange helps me line everything up for welding.





Next, I took the part over to the band saw after the first set up and trimmed off the edges. Then another block was machined. It was surfaced and holes were drilled in the same pattern. The sending unit plate was then flipped over and bolted to the second machined block. The machined block was then fit into the vice and the second half of the plate was machined.





The plate fits nice and snug. It should be an easy piece to weld right up tomorrow. I bolted in the sending unit just to see the orientation of the float. I marked on the plate a line so I know which direction I will need to orient the plate before I weld it in.



I got it fit between the frame rails and raised it to the height I liked. I measured and will fabricate some mounts for it tomorrow as well. It will sit higher than the frame rails to give more ground clearance. I plan on raising the bed floor slightly so I won't run unto any issues.



I had a good couple of take aways for learning.

I designed the tank to be folded up and welded just like any other box. The flat pattern looks like a cross, the four sides would be folded up, then a top would be added. The idea was good, fewer weld seams, close gaps to weld, everything was drawn up nicely. The problem is the tooling we have didn't allow me and my coworker to fully bring up two sides of the tank to 90 degrees. 8.500 inches is a very deep channel, and my shop didn't have the capable tooling to bring the two sides up to 90 degrees without the other side of the tank hitting the machine.

I had to trim off two sides and cut some more material because of that to finish the tank excluding the top. Due to that, I had some pretty awful welding gaps on the bottom. That lead to the tank not being completely square on the bottom seams.

Second thing. The internal baffling could have fit much better. I just used the shear and trimmed it. Some was close enough, a little under length so I just welded it in, put a couple seams in and bridged the gap. What this did is pulled the sides of the tank in. I warped the sides of the tank by doing that.

Third. The top got warped pretty good. With the less than perfect weld seams and little bit of warping here and there, not that big of a deal to me. So I'm going with it. However with the top, it could collect water there. Being that the sending unit isn't a tight pressure fitting. Water could seep into the tank eventually if I leave the tank warped.

I plan on heating the tank up a bit, putting some flat bar stock through the sending unit hole, mounting the tank down, then try to stretch out the top a bit to try to get it flat by pulling on the bar stock.

I sure learned a lot by doing this. I think some of it may have been me rushing into it. As i move forward, I will consult with more experienced coworkers in my shop. I'm already thinking of ways to design a better tank. I'll end up drawing those up and keeping them for when I'm ready to go for a fuel injection route and will require a return line.

 

Daniel, that is some very nice fab work. You are going to have a truck you can be proud of! I've enjoyed following along.

 

Thanks Rimrock! I'm very proud of this, my friends don't bother asking about my truck anymore, because I don't stop talking!

Here's an update on the tank. Its done! except for pressure testing and plumbing and mounting!

I started with some sheet metal, punched some slots for mounting and some 2.00 holes for... you guessed it... dimple dies.



Bent these up in the press brake and then measured them square and tacked them in the place I had measured out yesterday. Remeasured, then put some beads down.



I then lined up the top sending plate in the correct orientation so the float wouldn't interfere with the baffles, and welded that one in. I definitely need more practice welding on a curve! But, on a good note, the welding in of the top plate seemed to warp the tank in the direction that I needed. Just a little more massaging and I should have a flat top!


I measured out the float, Auto meter has a chart according to the depth of the tank. My tank is 8.50 deep, so I checked the data, trimmed accordingly and adjusted the sending unit. Hopefully the fuel gauge will be accurate.

Luckily, I had just enough clearance for everything to fit inside the hole for the sending unit. Tight squeeze, and I did panic for a second, but it dropped right in after a little rubbing through. I'll make sure to put in some clearance if I ever decide to machine more plates.



I finalized the welding, even sat the tank in-between the frame rails when I got home. Fits like a glove. I'll post a picture later this weekend once it is mounted. Its too dark and too cold to go outside.



Thanks for checking this out. Next week, I start the bed floor frame! Material is on the way to the shop!

 

Daniel,
Nice work but my concern is that there is a lot of weight hanging on those thin aluminum sheet metal brackets you welded to the tank. If those bracket did not support the tank they would be fine to keep it from moving if it is supported by another means. If they support a full tank of fuel by them only they will fail over time. I don't need to tell you what kind of danger that can cause. I would hate to see you or your truck go up in flames. Safety first when dealing with fuel.

 

That's a mexican coke bottle! Check my Jessie build thread to see a 2 Lt Pepsi temp gas tank.