Snow Trac : Fuel Tank Repair & Installation

Bob

How difficult was it for you to complete your gas tank.

I emailed an Ebay seller and he wants $8,500 for his Snow Trac. Thats about $2,500 to much but it is a nice vehicle. The tank needs to be repaired since I see he has a plastic Marine type fuel tank attached to the outside.

How difficult was it for you to complete your gas tank. Minus all the paint work. How was it to get it fixed and put back in?

I have an orginal fuel tank. It is pictured below sitting in the correct positon, but not installed.

You asked a couple questions so let me try to answer them.

The tank had some leaks in it and I felt that I needed a professional to repair those so I took it to a body shop that does classic car restorations because I knew they would get the job done right. Since the fuel tank is located INSIDE the passenger compartment , I didn't trust my own skills to do the repairs and didn't want to risk being trapped inside a vehicle that had a bomb located inside it!!!

The restoration shop sent the tank to a 'radiator shop' to fix the leaks, they also pressure tested it. The tank came back to the restoration shop where they smoothed out the rough spots, used a bit of Bond-O to correct some ripples, etc. The total cost from both shops was only $60.

I took it back to my shop, it was primed with grey primer. Painted with white paint to make a nice base and because I wanted white lettering on the side. After the white paint was dried, I applied some thick vinyl decals to spell out PETROL (mine is an English/Scottish import so I wanted to stick with the correct language). The tank was then sprayed over with red paint. (as outlined in another thread, this was done twice because I used the wrong type of paint and it had to be sanded off and repainted, but I won't go into that topic again for this thread). After the red paint was dried, the vinyl decals were removed to expose the white paint underneath leaving me with the finished product as shown in the photo.

Tank Installation is actually fairly simple if you don't do what I did, but instead do what I tell you to do!

I tried about a dozen ways to stuff the tank under the seat, and all of them failed. It just won't fit unless you do the obvious, which unfortunately eluded me at the time. The easy (and from what I can tell, the only) way to get the tank to fit into place is to remove the left door frame. My Snow Trac is assembled with stainless screws and lock washers so I didn't have to worry about corrosion or other issues, it was simply a matter of taking out about a dozen screws that hold the driver's side of the door frame in place to remove the frame. When the frame is removed, set the gas tank on the floor and simply slide it into place. There are straps to hold it into place, those are not shown in the above photo. But to be honest the tank doesn't move after you put the door frame back into place and attach the fuel line.

The fuel line runs inside the passenger compartment along the left side of the driver to the bench seat behind the driver. At the front of the bench seat is a glass vial fuel bell and from that point back the fuel line runs back to the top of the tank. Mine has a rubber hose attached to the copper fuel line. The rubber hose is about 12" long. I doubt that all of them are this way, I suspect it was put in place by the prior owner in their partial restoration.

The fuel line connects to a threaded nipple on the top of the tank. You can see part of the fuel fitting in the prior photo. It is located just above the letter T in the word PETROL on top of the tank. I scrounged for some parts and found a fitting that would thread onto the tank (sorry, I don't know the size, it was from my "misc parts" bin). Another scrounged part was put onto the hose end and I coupled them together to attach the fuel line.

In the photo above you can see the black rubber fuel line coming up through hole in the seat, it shows the fittings I used. (I just pulled it through when I was fitting the tank so it would be out of the way) The stainless steel fitting on the end of the hose is the threaded fitting that I used to connect up to the threaded nipple on the fuel tank. I know that part came from a commercial cappuccino machine!!!

In your original post you also mentioned that the Snow Trac you looked at on Ebay had a marine tank mounted outside the cabin.

When I got mine, it didn't have any fuel tank installed at all. For initial testing and playing, and just to run the engine every once in a while I used a plastic marine tank that I bungied into place with the rubber fuel line just dropped into the open container. Not safe, I know. But it was suitable for my short term needs.

I've seen several photos of folks who removed their fuel tanks and mounted them outside on the left side of the cabin over the tracks. If you follow the link and look at the thread that shows the Mountain Home Resort's Snow Trac, you can see he moved the tank outside the cabin. He also made another common modification in that he ran the exhaust under the Snow Trac to the rear of the machine.

Hi Bob<

Well I finally got off my dead butt and signed up . I do have something to add here on this Gas Tanks discussion . Of all the different bussnesses I have owned , one was a radiator repair shop . It was 13th in size in three states so I guess it did all right .
Anyway , if anyone builds a custom fuel tank with plans to have it "powder coated " when they are done ,if you intend to install a "epoxy tank Liner" in it ,make damn sure you do this "after" it is powder coated or the heat of the powder coating will crystalize the liner . You really do not want to know how I learned this .
Al