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'Chairs of a Honda CRX' that I've swapped the original seats for some luxery chairs and how I dealed with the problem with fueling under the seats. This will do the job, but it is still a bit of a hazzle.
Besides that I decided to fit a moulded matting system from Exmoor Trim for reducing the soundlevels in the cab. It's a pity to cut out a couple of flaps to reach the tanks in such a nice shaped matting. And these flaps would be possible soundleaks as well. So the top[ of the seatbase had to be closed.
I considered to fit a rear mounted tank and also keep both front tanks wich would be filled by using a pump- or leveling system with the rear tank as source. Finally I decided not to do that. By replacing the two front tanks for one rear mounted tank it falls off in capacity (from about 90 to 76 litres), but the opposite is that it's much more simple to refuel. For those incidental cases when the radius of action is to small I will use 20 litre jerry cans. |
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In principle all parts for fitting a rear mounted tank can be purchased from the well known suppliers. The only part that isn't in stock as a replacement, is the filler tube. Or more exactly the part where the tube has to be fitted in, because this is a part of the car's body. So I started searching for this difficult part en finally founded it at Ron Bolleboom.. After I got this part, I just ordered Paddock Spares for the rest of the bits.
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A other difficulty, when mounting a rear mounted tank to a ex-mod Land Rover, is the fact that the rear crossmember of a ex-mod Land Rover is a couple of centimetres smaller than the cross member of a normal Land Rover. As the tank has to be fitted to the underside of this crossmember a gap of about 60mm had to be filled. Finally I dealed with that by putting in a steel bar of 60x60x3mm. By the way, there are allready two boltholes in the crossmember, so there's no drilling involved.
On this photo there's a goof view on the tank. You can see that the tank has a double bottom, the bottom of the tank itself and the sheetmetal that's folded around the underside of the tank. In my opinion is this a very stupid construction, because in this way the tank is in a kind of tray collecting water between both bottoms, which is a start of a rotting proces. To prevent or delay the tank for this rotting proces, I sprayed the space between both bottoms with Tectyl ML. The tank on his side, spray, flip the tank to the other side and do it again. After that I sealed all seams and finally painted the whole tank with Bodysafe.
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And this is how it looks from the back.
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Fitting the filler wasn't very coplicated. Just a matter of measuring and some angle grinding. The filler is poprivetted in place with some DumDum between the two layers of metal. Later on I will paint it and then it will look fine.
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And this is how the filler looks from the inside. The fillertube crosses right through the middle of the toolbox. To work a little easy I cut a large square hole. Soon I will close that nicely, so this will become a good place for towing rope and boostercables. By the way, the small tube is a hose connected to the top of the tank to let out the air from the tank. When fueling the air in the tank will be replaced by the fuel entering the tank. The air had to escape and this happens through this tube, otherwise you get a lot of bubbles and foam when fueling.
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In top of the connections on the tank, I cut out a part of the floor. I had to make a cover, but now I can reach the connections on the tank without unboltening the whole fueltank. The fuelline (supply) is fitted to the connection which is on the floaterunit. The connection on the top of the photo is for the return fuelline from the engine. The last connection on the photo is the one that's for leveling the two sides of the fueltank. Despite what's often said, there's no difference between the floaterunits of a 12V or 24V Land Rover. You need two of three connections of the electrical circuit of the floaterunit. Just put in some fuel and just try it out.
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I've lead the hoses (supply and return) to the front attached to the underside of the floor and to the chassisrails. I've fitted the supply fuelline to the filter under the floor (passengersside).
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And I've fitted the return to the last nozzle. Job done!
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