The front tank on my old dent rotted out big time so I yanked it and decided to upgrade considerably. I went with a bed tank hooked up with a pickup tube and sender and plumbed it in directly where the front tank used to be. The sender is not quite right but I know when the tank is empty and can do the math from full. It stuck out like a sore thumb as a fuel tank and I didn't want people breaking the cap off or drilling a hole in it to get the 42 gallons of gas out so I built a fake "toolbox" to go over it. Was cheaper than buying a toolbox fuel tank. And, besides that, it looks like an old duffers truck that has nothing to steal. Isn't even a lock on the box to make it look tempting.

 

Just an FYI... I had a similar idea, but a fuel tank rated for gasoline to be in the bed has specific needs to be certified... Transfer Flow makes such tanks. Gasoline is flammable and most in-bed fuel tanks are rated for combustible liquids (diesel fuel).

Just a friendly heads up to check out local laws to avoid fines...

 

For sure. Look up the standards for tanks before going off all half cocked because many of them will not pass the code. I did lots of research on the laws to make sure I was okay. Truth be told, many of the standards that have to be met for fuel tanks and fuel transfer tanks ( two different animals according the the transportation administration guys) are exactly the same for gas and diesel because they don't care about the fuel necessarily but are more concerned with it getting out of the tank in an accident - whether it is protected by the frame or by the profile of the cab in the case of bed mounted tanks. I found many of the tanks built by the random builders out there have many tanks that meet the DOT tank rules for gasoline as long as they are not installed as gravity feed systems. However, they don't want to do the R&D and stuff necessary to afford the liability of certification for gasoline so they will not put a gas cert sticker on it. "DOT 49 CFR 393.67 - Liquid fuel tanks" is the baseline regulations for these builders. In reality, anyone can build a tank as long as it meets all the standards. Good luck getting it certified by anyone though to make the DOT and State Patrol inspectors happy. One of the underlying reason why my tank is inside of a wood box. It passes every one of the criteria. It is NOT a gravity feed supply tank. It is not being used as a transfer tank. It is also not obvious and the truck will never be used in a commercial application that adds a whole new slew of rules.

 

Sounds like you've done the research! I am going to eventually just bite the bullet and get the 38 gallon rear tank for mine...