Thread: Defener Water Tank

With cargo space becoming ever more important with a growing family, and after the accidental breakage of the tap on the water cube in the back of the Defender, I thought it was time to get a water tank.

I chose the Frontrunner tank out of South Africa http://www.frontrunner.co.za/ , which is the one Opposite Lock sell here. However getting it out of South Africa was a lot cheaper and I suppose with a growing $AUD the price should be even better by now. (Compare AUD to ZAR [South African Rand] on a Currency Exchanger).

To keep costs down I opted for Sea Freight - so it took 12 weeks and 2 days to get here, by postage (cheaper than courier). Postage was about $50AUD and insurance about an extra $3. Being an export, you can save the 14% South African GST off the purchase price, which helps with the freight cost.

The kit comes with all fittings & instructions.






The rear LHS wheel arch, where the tank will fit.



Unbolt the exhaust clamp. I'm not sure where the exhaust is routed in the South African defender, as it didn't appear in the instructions.



Drill the hole (measurements provided for in the kit).


Lining up the tank.



Bolt the front of the bash plate on.



Clearance from exhaust.



I initially tried to position the tank with the rear securing tag alongside the exhaust bracket. But this occluded the drain (hose) hole.



Before I realised the hole was occluded, I was happy to see the tag lined up with a pre existing bolt hole.




I then decided to bend the tag and try slipping it into the recess above the exhaust bracket. Bending the tag.



The aforementioned 'recess' above the tag. This however moved the bashplate too far to the outside.



So in the end the bash plate sat over the edge of the rear cross member lip, no bolt was used, but it's all pretty snug and vibration free.



The tap that was provided was good, with a 'nozzle' on the end for attaching a hose, but it was a bit too long to comfortably clear the rear ladder, so I used a shorter tap I had.




Tap side shot

Originally Posted by sclarke

Michael, Great tutorial....

Question... is the exhaust going to heat the tank?
is the tank metal or Poly?
Have you found any soot on the tap yet?

Otherwise i'm impressed...
about 50 litres was it???

Steve

Good post Michael. I've had mine for about 18 months. Great piece of kit!

To answer Clarkie's questions;

Exhaust does not heat the tank, even on a warm day the thick poly plastic and location of the tank keeps the water from warming up.

As Michael said, Poly is food grade. I've never had the water take on a "plastic" taste as per some water tanks. The first 100ml of water flushes out any grime that collects at the bottom of the tank if you leave the filler cap open or get dust in it when filling.

No soot on the tap but mine is mounted slightly different from Michael's. I went through the rear cross member, the little black mounting bracket wasn't necessary on mine but it seemed like a good place to store (see pic below) The tap is gravity feed but suppose you can easily install a small inline water pump and put the tap anywhere.



It is a definitely a 40L tank. Being a South-African product, the tap is even lockable with a padlock

Also, another thing that was a concern for me was rubbing of the wheels on full compression (I run 33" muddies) Not a problem at all.

Don't think, just get one .. there is no beter water tank for a Defender.