Tri-Five Fuel Tank Install

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In this day and age, hot rods get driven all over. From rod run to rod run, or poker runs, or simply for a cruise on a nice day.

There’s even several cross-country cruises. For those reasons, nothing is worse than stopping to fill up the tank every 50 miles.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly ready to start giving up horsepower just to get better gas mileage. If I were interested in that, I’d get myself one of those new hybrid 60-miles-to-the-gallon automobiles. When cruising around in a ’55-57 carrying a lot of weight with a good deal of horsepower, there’s only one thing to do-get a bigger gas tank.

Performance Online in Fullerton, California, carries a tank just for the application – a 19-gallon aluminum tank. The tank will cancel out those annoying trips to the pump every 15 minutes, and on top of that, they look cool as well. Seeing the aluminum pan hanging on the rear belly of the car is a cool sight. The best part is the fact it takes fairly little to hang one from the rear of your ride.

With the removal of a few brackets, fastening of six screws, and removing the spare tire bucket that resides in the trunk, you’ll be smooth sailing – pump free. In case you’re wondering why you should remove the spare tire bucket, remember, you’re not only adding a cool aluminum tank, but a more massive tank as well. Hence, more gallons and more driving time. Gotta love that!

 

Unless you feel like taking a gasoline bath, be sure to drain the existing gas from the tank.

 

Performance Onlines technician Aaron removed the fuel lines next.

  

 Two metal straps hold on the OEM tank. Remove the straps from the tanks; make sure you’ve got a third hand on the tank because it’s ready to fall.

 Now drop the tank down and out.

 

The spare tire bucket needs to be removed to make room for the Performance Online 19-gallon tank. By sanding away the paint, you can find the OEM spot welds holding the bucket on. Drill out the spot welds and remove the bucket.

 

When it comes to the spare tire jack mounts, you can either decide to keep them there or eliminate them. We opted to go ahead and eliminate; we got triple AAA for flat tires.

 

Performance Online provides a patch panel that is a weld-in and perfect fit.

 

Instead of spot welding in the panel, we tacked the panel in the same style Chevy did.

 

Once the panel was in, we coated the panel area with a rust preventive paint, such as POR 15.

 

The OEM bolts that held up the OEM straps were removed.

 

POL provides these threaded clips that go on the edge of the aluminum POL tank. Place the clips on the tank.

 

 

The POL alumium 19-gallon tank was put in place. Once up there, the crew at POL positioned the tank in the correct place and adjusted the clips accordingly.

 

 

Once everything was squared up, the tank was dropped back out. Aaron punched and drilled holes where the clips were mounted on the tank.

 

 

 The fuel line fittings were installed on the tank accordingly. Remember to use a thin Teflon coating on the thread of the fitting. You don’t want any fuel leaks.

 

The bend-to-fit sending unit for the tank is placed.

 

The filler neck hose is clamped to the POL tank next. We’re almost there.

 

 But first, remove the OEM filler neck and cut off the lip on the neck, which enters into the tank. Once the neck is cut, reinstall it in the stock location.

 

The tank was repositioned in its mounting position once again. Aaron marked on the underside of the trunk floor where the clips repositioned on the tank. Then holes were drilled through the floor.

 

The tank was hoisted up one last time. Be sure to hook up the OEM filler neck to the new POL tank, then secure the tank in place.

 

Six bolts fasten the tank to the car. Each bolt directly screws into the threaded clips on the tank.