A few years ago (about 25 actually) my darlin’ grandpa sold me his 1951 Ford pick-up. After driving it around for a few years (and it ran good except when it rained and then it wouldn’t start until the rain stopped and I opened the hood and let the sun shine on the engine. It wasn’t the spark plugs - there was no crack in the distributor cap… Guess it just needed sun, eh? Kind of like a bird suns and dries it’s wings after a rain? So, I foolishly decided that I needed to restore it. The first guy I took it to, stripped it down to the frame and sandblasted and primed all the parts and then gave it back saying that he could make more money doing insurance work. OK. It sat in the barn for a few years and then my little brother moved it aside to get another vehicle out of the barn - (my 1967 KarmenGhia convertible that he had rolled and smashed which he then sold and of course I never say any of the money, don’t cha know?) - and left my truck parked outside in the rain for a winter or two and no matter how much I pleaded, he did not put it back in the barn. When I finally found another guy who said he would do the work, we went to get the truck and the front end was all frozen up and, of course, by then, in much worse shape than when I started with the first guy. At least it ran before I ever tried to RESTORE it.
So, long long story to get to the end and the question, but I’ll leave that part out and just cut to the chase, OK?
The 1951 Ford is now living on top of a 1983 Ford F150 4-wheel drive chassis (boohoo you know what they say about hindsight?). The old '51 Ford’s had the gas tank inside the cab, so I moved that out to the area between the sides of the frame. The only way to put gas in the truck is to raise the dump-truck bed. Of course, I’ll be the coolest gal in the neighborhood when I go to get gas, but what about when I need to haul a load for more than one gas tank-full? Good grief, way too long to get here to the QUESTION, which is: can you give me some ideas about how to create an alternative route to fill up the gas tank without raising the dumptruck bed?
Thanks!
GP
A bit of a conundrum. You can either run the fuel filler neck up in to the cab and out of the original filler hole (probably less desirable), or you can cut away part of the side of the bed and run the neck out there. Optimally, you’d have a flat bed that didn’t hang down below the level of the frame and your filler neck could hang out down there, OR you’d have the tank between the frame rails (a lot more safe than the side-saddle tanks) at the rear of the truck, and you could fill it from the rear.
All just thoughts, I’m sure a reasonably competent body shop could rig up something decent. Sounds like a cool rig!
I have seen custom tanks fitted behind the rear axel on other trucks,look and see if it is possible for you.