Custom 35 gallon gas tank for '09 Tacoma

[TscotR214]

Update on my burnt fuel pump, as of this morning Monday April 1st. Yes, I did get a CEL on the second day, but it was only 171's and 174's, which are excess oxygen on left bank and right bank (system too lean), or in other words, NO GAS. I really didn't need my ScanGuage to tell me that, but it was reassuring to know that was indeed the problem and quite nice to be able to clear the codes, if only to relieve the agitation of sitting in the middle of an intersection, stalled, with an annoying check engine light to add to my misery.

And my very first thought was a vacuum situation as well, given sloshing and desert heat. The first day, my first fix attempt was to turn engine off and open gas cap. I listened as I loosened cap, trying to detect any unusual whooshing either direction, but cap and tank pressures behaved normally. Additionally, that did not solve any issues. The second day, getting back to camp, I tried the gas cap trick a few more times, no effect either way. Now, that's not to say that unusual pressures were indeed the initial cause of the issue, and by the time my truck stalled the first time the damage had already been done to the fuel pump, so that's a very good point for consideration. I've bombed around plenty with that truck before the CES tank with no ill effects, but again my fuel cap could have just failed on this trip. Hard to rule out coincidences, unfortunately.

Status: truck is still in Victorville, I'm driving a rental Camry schmoo car, bleck. Dealer quote is around $2k for new factory fuel pump in CES tank. I'm having them investigate an EXTERNAL fuel pump and filter, and at the same time install the factory TRD supercharger while they're messing with all the fuel system stuff. Kind of throwing them a bone with the supercharger if they're willing to research and install the external fuel pump, and either way they have to drop the CES tank so my current thoughts are to ditch the internal fuel pump and go external. Or, now with this new info, crud, maybe give the internal pump one more try with a new gas cap and make sure everything has clamps? Who knows. Will certainly report back as project develops. yeah, it's always a project.....

Side note, the, uh, well, extra skid plate that Shane puts on the CES tank, is, uh, pretty beefy. Not that I, uh, may have tested it a time or two..... How do you know where your limits are if you don't exceed them once in awhile, I always say!

 

[hornytoad]

TscotR214

Outch! That's a rough bill for that pump. If you do a lot of rock crawling and angled driving can you add a heat sink to the internal pump body? I have seen finned heat sinks for ATV's and dirtbikes. Maybe one could be stuffed into the tank??

Good luck with the repairs!!

 

[TscotR214]

Wednesday update: After multiple phone calls to Shane at CES and Ken at TRD (the actual in-the-dirt racing section of Toyota Racing Development), the verdict on the factory Toyota fuel pump is this: as long as the fuel pump is pumping fuel, any fuel, the internal flow of fuel through the pump to the engine is sufficient to keep the pump cool, indefinitely. Notice the word "indefinitely" comes straight from TRD, but the guy seemed pretty darn genuine and honest, and turns out we've driven some of the same sections of roads in Baja so I don't feel like he was just blowing factory smoke at me. The TRD guys have experimented with their race trucks for just such an eventuality as low fuel / burnt pump, and they've never had issues, even bombing through Baja on fumes, and they can afford to put whatever they want on those factory race trucks, so...... Kind of leaves me in a pickle. A finned heat sink seems like a good idea, but I thought an external pump would be an easy solution too. Turns out an external fuel pump would require a sloped fuel tank with a bottom bung outlet, which the CES tank with it's perfectly flat bottom most definitely is not. You can run an external pump with a draw straw through the top of the tank, but according to the TRD race guys, they tried that and ended up sucking more air than fuel most of the time, even with baffles and sumps. Shane does external pumps and draw straws quite a bit on diesels, but mostly for flat freeway driving, not desert racing. Shane also called a few CES tank owners to question them about their driving habits and experiences, and evidently I'm unique in how hard I push my truck. Oops. Can't have Toyota without Toy. Today I asked the Victorville Toyota dealer to install a new factory fuel pump, the TRD factory supercharger, and to keep the old fuel pump so I can send it to Shane for post-mortem inspection so we can all figure out what's going on.

 

[TangoBlue]

TscotR214,

"Goodonya" on several counts!

Sharing your rational observations and thorough description of the issues. Your desire for a detailed analysis to develop a satisfactory conclusion/solution for this issue. Your thorough accounts leave little to the imagination.

All too often we see whining and accusations; your taking ownership of the problem is refreshing and hopefully will inspire others.

Thanks for keeping us posted; even those of us who won't be able to employ this tank are learning from your experience. Thanks!

 

[Captm]

X2

 

[hornytoad]

X3

I'm really glad that you are working with TRD and CES to figure this out. Something to ask the TRD guys is the impact of the emissions gear. If something clogs/fails/get's pinched on one of our rigs we have all the CARB complaint stuff to fail and then stress out other parts of the fuel injection system.

This in turn could burn up the pump or cause the computer to default into "limp home mode". (Do we have this?? BMWs have a default can't hurt anything driveabality mode, that doesn't let you drive more than 55mph and runs super rich) Either way could potentially strand us.

 

[TscotR214]

Friday update: So here's some news from the TRD race folks, confirmed with my local gas supplier, my experiences with my own charter vessel (dive boat), and confirmed in my drink with ice cubes I'm crying in now. Gasoline, straight petroleum gasoline, is hydrophobic (hates water) and does not absorb water. If we get a little water in our tanks, usually common place in most gas stations, refineries, etc, that small amount of water will sink to the bottom of the tank (gasoline floats in water) and be pulled out and burnt off in the first few seconds when we start our engines. Boats have gasoline (or diesel) / water separators for just that purpose, that simply get drained on a periodic basis. That's with pure gas. Now, living in California as I do, we get the joys of ethanol. Ethanol is a type of alcohol, and alcohol is hydrophilic, meaning it loves water, and thus with our 5% - 15% ethanol blends being produced for the CA market, we get gasoline that doesn't float on top of water but absorbs water evenly throughout the mix. Thus, in a mild steel tank as the one produced by CES, instead of occasionally having a small amount of water in the very bottom of the tank for a few hours (like overnight for example), we have fuel mixed evenly with water that continuously coats the inside of the steel tank with, well, water. The result: rust. Guaranteed. Not avoidable. No additives available to prevent alcohol from absorbing water (damn ice cubes are watering down my drink, along with my tears), nothing you can do about it. Gave Shane a call, he confirms. Shane has been considering a tank from stainless steel, but was concerned the cost would be exorbitant. The last tank he made he tried an internal coating, advice from a local radiator shop, that shows some promise but is only a few weeks old so probably needs a few months testing to confirm usability. Personally I don't trust coatings unless the bond is truly at the molecular level, but I would pony up for a stainless version. I simply cannot afford to be stranded in the middle of nowhere by some mechanical aspect that is avoidable with foresight at home. I always carry satellite based rescue beacons (like ePIRBS), so help is just a helicopter ride away, but still would suck to airlift my truck out of some canyon somewhere (two straps on front bumper, two on rear bumper, two on each side rock slider, eight straps total will work as airlift attachment points for most Tacoma air loads, if ya all ever have the need, by the way). Until we cut my fuel pump apart to confirm cause of death we can't say for sure that rust was the issue, to be fair, but mechanic reports entire inside of CES tank filmed with rust (not flake rust, but film, can draw pictures with your finger kind of film), fuel filter is brown, and fuel lines are brown inside all the way to injectors, which means I've been burning super fine non-soluble rust for a few months. Everyone also thinks that possibly my high speed desert driving did a super job of sloshing the heck out of the inside of the CES tank and thoroughly rinsing any and all available rust film off and into the fuel system, as my first stall occurred within a mile or so of a particularly (super outrageously fun) curvy s-turn section followed by a straight soft sand passing section (super slosh, rinse, settle, suck into pump, fuel fail, in that order). The Victorville dealer is pulling the CES tank at my request, replacing it with a standard OEM factory tank, and returning my truck to stock configuration (well, new supercharger) for now. Water in the fuel was always an issue for me in Baja, and now evidently throughout ethanol country as well if I continue to run a mild-steel tank. Shane has been super responsive and helpful, and I'll either get my CES tank internally coated in the future if that option survives the test of time for a few months, or see how my neighbor's OZ tank looks when it arrives in a few weeks, or pay Shane to make a stainless version of the CES tank. In any case, I just don't feel comfortable with the combination of hydrophilic ethanol and raw mild steel at this time. Obviously there's plenty more research to be done, but it could be a few months yet for results.

On the "limp home mode" question, TRD reports the best thing to do is get a code-clearing OBDII device (ScanGuage for example) and just clear any codes you get to keep you driving. In one tech's words: "Sure you might fry your engine, those shut down codes are designed to protect the mechanical integrity of all those moving parts, but would you rather be sitting in the desert staring at an annoying light for the rest of your (short) life, or back in a hotel room sipping ice cubes and wiring home for money transfers to get your engine replaced?"

 

[hornytoad]

Damm TscotR214 that's rough. I wonder if the type of steel could be altered to prevent rust on the tank like that? For offshore use companies make stainless steel coated mild steel for structural anti corrosion use. Cheaper and stronger than the equivalent thickness of stainless steel. Or maybe even Parkerise the whole tank? Some type of molecular coating like guns and knives use could be called for.

I hope Shane can come up with a solution to this, because being stranded is one of the reasons I want the supertanker.

So what's so hot about the Ausie tanks? Are they hot dipped after welding?

 

[TscotR214]

Good questions. I just googled for OZ tank info, got this back. Manufacturer is http://thelongranger.com.au/4wdfueltanks.html. Only info for Toyota is for the Hilux, their version of our Tacoma's, and FAQ page wasn't working, but here's the pdf brochure link for the Hilux http://thelongranger.com.au/Tanks/TR63/2005%20Toyota%20Hilux%20TR63%20Long%20Ranger%20Replacement%20Fuel%20Tank%20Sales%20Brochure.pdf

Looks like it's made from 2mm hot dipped aluminised steel, whatever the heck that is. Wiki search gave this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminized_steel. Looks like mild steel, hot dipped in aluminum, kind of like hot dipped galvanized steel for fence posts, etc. Strength of steel, aluminum coating? Sign me up. I know from the boating world that straight aluminum tanks really suck, too rigid to stand the pounding and flexing a smaller vessel at sea can impart on a fuel cell. Although from the pdf brochure photo, that's just asking for a rock. I like how the CES tank tucks up nicely, and I can testify from experience that Shane's skid plate works great (or my driving sucks, which is also true). I'm sure this hot dip approach is way cheaper than pure stainless, and I tend to trust hot dip fairly well as a method in general. The Aussie folks have been making these Long Ranger tanks for a really long time, so they have tons of experience with this method, but we'll have to see how the ethanol reacts. I do know that when I get fuel from a non-ethanol source my MPG goes up by at least 5-7 MPG, it's insane. I don't know about New Mexico, but when I fueled up in Medford OR I got 24MPG on the way home, and when I fueled up in Mojave CA I got 22MPG wheeling through the desert, compared to my typical 15MPG in Santa Cruz CA. Cleaner air, but takes more fuel to go the same distance. I'm not much of a fan of ethanol yet, obviously. And the Aussie tanks are much lighter as well. Haven't held one in my hands yet, but new friend from this forum is getting one in a few weeks and lives a few blocks away, kinda cool, so I'll definitely be Johnny-on-the-spot helpful dude just for the experience of installing his.

I'm having the Victorville dealer add an in-line fuel tee for the express purpose of pumping fuel from the (soon to be factory) tank into a gas can to help out a stranded friend in need, another reason I wanted the supertanker as well.

 

[kmacafee]

A few months ago, I posted this on a thread trying to get a group buy going: "I was just in a store in Namibia that is selling a stainless steel auxilairy tank for the Hilux with a 100 Litre capacity (26 gallons) for 2995 Rand. At the current exchange rate, thats about 390 US dollars. Installation was 500 Rand or $56 bucks. I asked the guy if the pricing was correct and he said it was. They install about 10 a month.

It seems it would be cheaper to figure out how to import them."

Zolo, TangoBlue and others blasted me for somehow trying to negatively impact the group buy. I pointed out that I had helped install one of the Hilux tanks in a 2nd gen Tacoma with minor modifications but was basically called a liar.

I am truly sorry for all the problems and cost incurred by TscotR214. But seriously -- just because a machine shop decides to play in the gas tank world doesn't mean they should. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to know that untreated steel is inappropriate for a fuel tank. Fortunately this issue came up before a tank failed and exploded causing injury or death.

TangoBlue and Zolo -- I'm sure you guys have expertise at something. Stick to whatever that is because its not in the field of metallurgy or gas tanks.

 

[colodak]

while not a Toyota owner, I have followed this thread for a couple of months. TscotR, BG keeps running a commercial on Sat. radio for some product to add to the gas tank to help counter the ethanol fuels, haven't looked into it yet, but something to ponder.

 

[cam-shaft]

Good call on the drain especially with todays fuel. Next time do a 1.5-2" drain also, speaking from experience. I think the only problem you guys need to be aware of is filling the tank completly full and not burning it off anytime soon. With todays alcohol in the fuel, fuel starts to go bad in over a month. I would just run tank low on gas unless planning a long trip. Remember adding fresh fuel to old bad gas is like adding good milk to sour milk.

Did not even cross my mind that they were not using an aluminized steel, I should of caught that. Sorry for your mis-fortunes. Pure aluminum tank properly built would work well and be the best option in my mind, just make sure mounting of tank is strapped without any mounting hardware being welded to tank, that is where the tank would start to crack. Aluminum is consistantly used for fuel tanks in the marine world, it is just knowing how to properly mount them so that they do not crack. Todays fuel has up to 10% alcohol and your good ol government is trying to push 15%. Alcohol attracts water.
Yamaha makes a good product, fuel stabliizer. I personally run a little marvels mystery oil in my fuel tank, but I dont have as much fuel to go bad over-time. With todays fuel I think a transfer tank or gas cans are hard to beat. (always cycling the fuel).

Cam-shaft.

 

[Captm]

While not addressing the issue of tank material construction I have often wondered why fuel filter/water separators are not used on our trucks. It seams like a Racor Gasoline Spin On Fuel Filter/Water Separator would do the job.
Cheers

 

[cam-shaft]

While not addressing the issue of tank material construction I have often wondered why fuel filter/water separators are not used on our trucks. It seams like a Racor Gasoline Spin On Fuel Filter/Water Separator would do the job.
Cheers

With todays alcohol in fuel we may see something like this in the future or good modification. The problems still is the source(tank) and the fuel pump that sits in the tank, it is before everything, so the filter would just protect the injectors. Plus mass quantities of water as one sees with old acohol gas, your racor could only collect so much. If there is water in the fuel then the process of phase seperation has began and your fuel is pretty much on its way to have no octane rating and can cause major problems anyhow.

My personal recommendation for people that have this tank would be to first verify that they have no water in tank and that it has not begun to rust inteternally. If your tank shows good and you are willing to continue on using it, then I would personally try to avoid ethanol blended fuel. (we have a few stations in oregon that offer E-0 in 92 octane) or if you continue to run the ethanol gas make sure you dont let the gas get old and always add a fuel system treatment. The old theory of filling up the tank is no good with alcohol fuel. How do you keep ethanol gas from getting old? Best way in my mind is cycle the fuel, keep that large tank on the empty side unless needing it full for a trip where you know you will be burning through fuel. Remember this as I stated a long while ago, adding good gas to bad gas is the same as adding good milk to sour milk, it is still not good. Ethanol gas becomes old quickly, especially if your truck is stored in an environment with a lot of temperature change. Building a large volume fuel tank today and not understanding todays quality of fuel is a recipe for disaster, in my mind.

On another note: TscotR214 concerning that trd supercharger kit you are installing. I am not familiar with the kit and if it comes with new lb/per hr injectors or it just comes with more injectors. What I am getting at is if the old injectors are used at all the dealer needs to have them cleaned and flowed or just replace. All of that rust and debris is sitting in your injector screens. Lack of the proper amount of fuel and good quality fuel under-boost usually does not have a happy ending.

Cam-shaft.

 

[steve103]

im soooo glad i did not go with this tank for myself and that the group buy i was working on did not happen. i am looking forward to the oz tank. aluminized steel, i think this kind of tank is a much better idea.