2 Big Broncos Rocky Mountain Site
Gas Tank Skidplate
Still under construction
The gas tank took a real beating a few years ago on the Green Ridge Trail before the lift kit was installed. It finally started leaking last summer so I broke down and bought a new tank. In order to avoid destroying the new tank, I am building a new skidplate out of 1/4" plate steel. No stinking rocks gonna tear up my tank again!
The old stuff. You can get a feel for how wrinkled the tank is. The part that
really surprised me is how relatively undamaged the skidplate is. The tank is
caved in about four inches. The skidplate is only indented about an inch and a
half.
This is damage that existed when I bought the truck. The skidplate is worn right
through. Notice how thin the metal is. The only purpose for this plate was to
hold the tank in place, it didn't provide any protection.
The new tank from www.auto-gastanks.com.
It turns out the new tank and the old tank were made by the same company in
Canada. The quality of this tank seems to be really good, especially in light of
the damage sustained by the old tank without splitting open. These folks also
carry polyethylene tanks, which is what I really wanted. Pay close attention to
what you order to make sure you order what you want. the autogastanks site talks
about poly tanks, but I navigated to the wrong place before hitting
"BUY".
The new skidplate parts. The skidplate is 31 X 21.5 X 7.25. The bottom, fore and
aft uprights and bolt flanges are made from 1/4" plate and hot rolled bar
stock. The side covers are made from 3/16 steel plate and provide an incredible
amount of support.
First test fit of the skidplate. Things look really good so far except for my
welding skills. I need a quick refresher before continuing.
Here it is almost ready for paint. The spatter from my flux cored MIG welder is
pretty tough to remove. Unfortunately I learned about anti-spatter spray too
late. After I drill the mounting holes, I need to remove as many of the little
steel balls from the corners as I can, wire brush out the remaining slag, and go
over the whole thing with a good degreaser. Then a couple coats of Rustoleum
will keep it looking good for years.
And here it all finished and installed. The installation only had a few snags.
Several years of 4-wheeling had tweaked the crossmembers as well as the old
skidplate. Five of the eight bolts holding the tank in lined up OK, the rest
needed to be drilled slightly to get them lined up. Because I made the new
skidplate a couple inches wider than the old one, it hit the rear brake line
where it came through the crossmember. A couple minutes with the 'ole smoke
wrench and a grinder took care of that problem. You can see that the quality of
my welding isn't outstanding, but this is my first big fab job with long runs of
weld. I decided not to grind down the welds to keep the strength of the joint
up. I think it looks pretty good for a first effort!
This picture gives a good idea of how far below the frame rail the tank sits. I
decided to leave it this way rather than go with the smaller tank. This tank
holds 33 gallons which means I can do the longest trip in Larimer County
Colorado (Green Ridge. Trailhead 110 miles from Ft. Collins, 25 miles off-road,
and 125 miles back through Red Feather Lakes) with plenty of fuel to spare. The
standard tank, which only holds 25 gallons, is a couple inches shorter, but
losing the range of the big tank isn't acceptable. The cutouts on the lower
corners should make keeping the inside of the skidplate clean a lot easier. The
big problem with the stock skidplate is that it accumulates dirt like crazy
which already caused one gas tank to rust completely through.
This was a really fun project, especially for a first large welding project. I learned a lot and saved a TON of money. The Bronc is now better able to withstand big rocks and tough trails. Now that I have my leaky gas tank taken care of, I can continue on with other mods!