Can you fill your sill tank with a hi flow pump?

[Shingleback]

G'day all, I'm in the early stages of designing some sill tanks for my 130. From reading on here they can be very slow and a pain to fill even with a standard fuel pump.

So, if you have sill tanks can you fill them quickly? If so, any details and pics of set up be great thanks.

I think the basic idea is to have large fill and breather hoses with a good fall into the tanks, which is the challenge. Should be easier on the 130 hopefully as you can run hoses behind the cab.

Cheers,
Andrew.

[Shingleback]

Should add that I plan on having both left and right sill tanks and would be good to fill them both from the one filler.

[rick130]

Not a chance with a high flow pump.

I've straightened out the breather as best I can and I need to have the drivers side high and preferably the car nose down with a standard nozzle it's still a pain.


Will be unloading all my work gear and packing the car tomorrow so can take some piccies.

[roverrescue]

Andrew
When I was increasing fuel capacity I discounted sill tanks as I had them on an old disco and filling was always a headache. I ended up getting a custom 75L tank above the factory unit. But if I didn't go that way I would have made up a tank which fits in the tapered space behind the cab between the tray. Final option would have been a long ranger main replacement?

Sill spaces are filled now for me with a 40L water tank at passenger and 22L air tank at drivers...

S

[Xtreme]

G'day all, I'm in the early stages of designing some sill tanks for my 130. From reading on here they can be very slow and a pain to fill even with a standard fuel pump.

So, if you have sill tanks can you fill them quickly? If so, any details and pics of set up be great thanks.

I think the basic idea is to have large fill and breather hoses with a good fall into the tanks, which is the challenge. Should be easier on the 130 hopefully as you can run hoses behind the cab.

Cheers,
Andrew.

You've got the basic ideas right but I'd include that it is essential to have a constant fall with no low spots on your breather hose/s. Fuel will get into the breather line and become trapped and thereby cause a blockage if there is a low spot in the line.

I had about a dozen sill tanks made up for self and friends with 110's as per the attached drawings and photo and, even though the filler pipe enters at the bottom of the tank (to avoid the chassis outrigger) I have not had any trouble filling them with both standard and high flow pumps. IMHO the routing and size of the breather is more important/critical than the size of the filler. If making them again, I would also consider fitting a second breather line at the front of each tank as this would allow better 'breathing' and eliminate trapping air if you weren't parked level while filling.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2016/08/1168.jpg

I have my breather line T'd into the OE breather line as high as I could get it and have a 50mm filler mounted just inside the rear door with a flush mounted marine filler cap - so only a short drop into the tank. I only have the drivers side tank fitted.
A friend has both drivers and passengers side tanks fitted and has plumbed both fillers back to the OE filler - so he fills all three tanks from the standard filler point. He had to use one of the old metal fillers from, IIRC a 200 Tdi in lieu of the plastic ones currently used. He can direct the filler to either the original tank or the two aux.tanks. This also means that he sometimes, in steep situations, gets fuel transferring via the filler tubes from the aux.tanks to the main tank.

[Beery]

G'day all, I'm in the early stages of designing some sill tanks for my 130. From reading on here they can be very slow and a pain to fill even with a standard fuel pump.

So, if you have sill tanks can you fill them quickly? If so, any details and pics of set up be great thanks.

I think the basic idea is to have large fill and breather hoses with a good fall into the tanks, which is the challenge. Should be easier on the 130 hopefully as you can run hoses behind the cab.

Cheers,
Andrew.

Have you got a dropside tray or HCPU? If a dropside, you could mount the filler up on the headboard to give it a bit of elevation.

Cheers
Tom

[Ranga]

But if I didn't go that way I would have made up a tank which fits in the tapered space behind the cab between the tray

This is the way I would go, especially if it would be able to drain directly in the main tank, hence no need for separate pumps or fillers.

[rick130]

Following on from Rogers post, my LRA tank I think has two issues.
The filler is too level initially, no fall at all for about six inches where you place the nozzle when filling, it's absolutely parallel to the ground, and the breather is inadequate and forms a trap.

One day I might re-route the breather rather than continually swear at it when I fill up (and I mostly use the sill tank instead of the main, just to centralise the weight)

[Shingleback]

Wow, thanks for all the replies guys, good stuff. I had considered a tank elsewhere and agree the tapered space behind the cab would be a good option, but I have two viair compressors mounted there and I also have a big under tray slide out drawer taking up the rest of the space.

I like the idea of the sill tanks to carry the weight down low and central, and are encouraged by Rogers reply that it is possible to fill them quickly. Thanks for the tips, very helpful.

[Blknight.aus]

they can be modified to fill quickly, or quicker but I wouldnt go so far as to say that you could fill the off the shelf ones with a high flow pump.

If you have a look at the lecturing a tdi300 thread this post (http://www.aulro.com/afvb/2447448-post20.html) you can see how I've set my disco sill tanks up and they all fill from the normal disco filler by means of a "snorkle" inside the normal filler that comes up to about 3 inches short of the white cap thread. to fill I just put the pump nozzle into the filler and let it go on the slowest speed while I get on with doing the rest of the checks on the vehicle. to build the "filler"

a bit of 3 inch (from memory) exhaust pipe has 2 holes drilled in the top and 3/8 npt bosses welded on, these are the fill points for the main tank from the sill tanks.

there is a hole drilled in the side of the pipe. into that hole a bit of 3/4 ID pipe with 2 45 degree mandrel bends is welded, the first bend puts the inserted pipe in the middle and on the bottom of the main pipe, the second bend points the outlet of the pipe up the filler hose, 3/4 ID hose is forced over the end of this and then the whole thing is inserted into the filler and clamped.

the breather is just a bit of 3/4 tube stock with 4 barbs brazed on to take the 4x breathers from the AUX tanks.

all up that part of modding so you can get all 3 tanks to fill from one takes 4 hours including driving to and from and getting the various bits of pipes cut to length and bent to order then installing them.

[Bushie]

Have a long ranger sill tank in my Tdi can fill with a hiflo pump no problems, but it fills from under the drivers seat straight into the tank.

Martyn