Gas Can Carriers

[Dave]

I'm in a similar situation as K.C. I would like to be able to carry a few extra gallons on occasion without heavily modifying the truck or carrying it up top. I think eventually I will probably do something similar to what VikingVince has done. Basically he's built a couple jerry can carriers that mount and swivel on his stock bumper.

http://www.bajataco.com/vikingvince/Vince_FlipPac/enlfr.htm?32

http://www.bajataco.com/vikingvince/Vince_FlipPac/enlfr.htm?33

There's a thread somewhere on here where he went into a little detail and I think I have still have the PM's from him about them, I'll see if I can dig those out.

Edit: Here's the post from Vince... http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=97366&postcount=26

 

[devinsixtyseven]

When I last looked at an Xterra, I thought..."hey, they designed this with mods in mind!" since it looks like you could remove all that plastic cladding and get clear access to the wheels front and rear.

particularly in the rear, there's no need to reproduce the stock bumper lines...build it as high as possible, wrap something around the side to protect the rear of the truck, and you'd even have a place to put an upper hinge for your swingout, similar to the picture posted earlier in the thread.

For now tho, since you're not going nuts offroad, I'd actually recommend just securing it to the center of the roof rack...cheap and easy. Narrow side down, opening pointing backwards with the cap high, so if you slam the brakes it's not sloshing at the cap. Your roof sheet probably weighs at least 35#, so if it's one jerrycan and you're driving within reason it's probably not going to be an issue. Several jerrycans plus water, spare, etc. like I see some people doing, yeah...but one jerrycan with fuel, that's not much to worry about as far as CG is concerned if you're taking it easy.

-Sean

 

[ntsqd]

After doing a little research, I have found out a few things.
About the max weight of 1 gallon of gas is 6.5lbs (depending on temperature) at 6.5lbs per gallon that is 32.5lbs.
The gas can holder that I am interested weighs another 2lbs

My 6 gallon water container weighs about 1-2lbs. I wouldnt think a Jerry can like the one pictured above couldnt be more than 2-3 lbs.

That is only 36.5 -38lbs max weight.

Call it 38 lbs. That's static. A simple RoT for dynamic loading is 3X the static weight. So now that can of fuel 'weighs' 114 lbs. Can't design & plan for the 38 lbs., have to use the 114 lbs. if the various bits are expected to have any lifespan.

The design in the first linked pic looks like the best option to me.