Quick Help Needed- Dropping Tanks

[Greenie]

Dropping the tanks is easy - hooking up the fuel lines blind with very limited space was very difficult.

 

[Knuckledragger]

Lifting bed

Not meaning to throw more mud on the subject, but My 85 has metric carriage bolts holding the bed on. Ford was really in a pickle those years, I have to take two sets of wrenches to work on the trucks. Even the engines have some metric parts on them (glow plug threads).

 

[BioFarmer93]

Well, dropping the front tank turned out to be very easy, especially after siphoning out all but a pint of fuel. I got 7-1/2 gal. out of it, as that is what's left in it when the pump starts sucking air. The nuts and bolts were almost as corroded as the bed bolts but I was able to get to the heads w/ a 13mm box end and used a deep well 15mm w/ an air wrench on the nuts after a good dose of PB Blaster and things moved along smartly. The tank interior is pristine, however the area around the pickup/sender looks a bit nasty and took a lot of cleaning to even find the retainer ring- which was rusted almost to an unidentifiable mass and barely held up long enough to get it off. However, the area under the big o-ring gasket is in good shape and the four retainer tabs though rusty, are still usable so a new tank doesn't need to be ordered. Parts and pieces of the old pickup assembly were rattling around in the bottom of the tank, and disassembly of the sender showed the wearing through of most of the range of the little micro segmented variable resistance thingy (technical name, don't be intimidated) that I read about in another post today. Needless to say, my fuel gauge could never be trusted. So far the only thing I've been able to locate/order is the retaining ring. I'll fabricate a pickup with fuel hose and a Tee on the end in a 316L stainless steel screen bag, but I'm wondering how difficult it's going to be to find that sending unit. I'm sure Ford has moved on to something better by now. For the interim I'm just going to be using the rear tank and keeping a close eye on the trip meter. I wrapped the pickup and return lines as well as the electrical connection and filler tube in clean rags and zip tied them up out of the way until I can locate parts. Attached are a couple photos of the carnage..

 

[Diesel_brad]

If you go to a junk yard you can use one from a powerstroke. 94-97 just make sure you get the pigtail to go with it(differnt style plug) O and they are stainless too

 

[icanfixall]

About dropping the front tank... Sorry but you don't need to do that to remove what you did. Just reach up there and knock loose the retaining ring and pull out the guts. Now the rear tank is a killer. Either drop the tank or remove the bed. If dropping the tank is your method then get it as dry as possible. Any fuel left in it will slosh around throwing off your balance. Thats what makes it so hard to handle. Also cut loose the fuel lines on the other side of the spreader rail. Then you have more slack in the lines making it easier to drop the tank and reach in to remove the fuel and electrical lines.... Most any retaining ring will fit these tanks... Even a gas fuel tank ring will work. Find a rust free wrecking yard....

 

[BioFarmer93]

Dear Mr. Icanfixall...

Hoss, you must be one hell of a super mechanic, with the ability to shapeshift the size of your body at will. I would not even have considered attempting that sender change out without dropping the tank. In the first place, every bit of crap and crud from the last 21 years that was sitting on top of that unit would have fallen into the tank. In the second place, I had no freakin idea how the thing was even held in place, Mr. Experienced Mechanic sir... For all I knew it could have been bolted in place with six 1/4-20 bolts. Try not to forget that YOU are looking at the situation from years and years of wrenching experience, and I am exploring uncharted territory every time I do something to this truck. It is more than an understatement to say that this (truck) has been a learning experience.

 

[BioFarmer93]

P.S.- Oh yeah, and it took two of us with hammers and screw drivers knocking opposing tabs in unison to get the retainer ring to start to turn and break loose where it was rusted together.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

I replaced the sending-unit in my front tank with a ( then ) $16 generic one from J.C.Whitney that specified the correct OHMs resistance whatever to work with the factory Ford dash-gauge.

I had to "adapt" this generic sender to mount onto my factory tank-unit.

There is an excellent write-up around here or "Ford Truck Enthusiast" site by FELLRO86 that shows in detail what is involved in connecting the J.C.Whitney sender onto the Ford thingie.

That $16 generic sender is in every way FAR SUPERIOR to that expensive junk that Ford put in there.

I spent lots of extra time and effort, bending and adjusting the float-rod, using an iron-square and tank-depth measurements.

The extra effort really paid off, as when the gauge reads "E", there ain't hardly a quart left, and it no longer stays above "F" for the first hundred miles or so, but immediately gradually starts going down.


The factory original ( 1985-model ) started acting up in mid-1986 and I put up with it for years; had I have known there was such a much better solution, I would have done this years ago.

 

[icanfixall]

Thanks biofarmer for the complaments but... I too removed the front tank and then found out I didn't need to.... I had about 8 gallons of fuel in it and it sure did mess with me.. Stupid thing is I left the fuel in it when I struggled to reinstall it.... I learned something doing that... Out here we don't have the salt or rust issues but I understand what you going theu... Ford actually has a special wrench made just for removing these tank sending units. I just fornd one on ebay last week... Really didn't need it but sure wanted it... BTW your screen shower head pickups looked just like mine when I fished them out of the tanks. I had bought a new one from ebay and had it installed in the rear tank... Then Heath suggested that I remove it and install the rubber hose trick.... I did thinking how bad things are when you can only use 8 of 17 gallons in the rear tank. So now I can run easily down to almost 17 gallons before I switch tanks....

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

>>> ANOTHER OPTION <<<

In my big auxilliary tank, I installed a complete SunPro sending-unit, with a separate dash-mounted gauge.

I also took the same care in float-rod adjustment with this one as I did with the one in the front tank and it performs equally as well.

You could install one of these, but a new hole for it must be cut in the tank's top, or adapt the sending-unit portion to mount onto the factory thingie.

Either way, the matching dash-gauge must be used.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

For what it's worth, Ford mixed and matched fuel-tanks a lot in the dual-tank trucks, be they gas or diesel.

My own 1985 F-350 came factory-equipped with a steel 20-gallon front tank and a plastic 20-gallon rear.

The tank outlet/sender thingie on the plastic tank is in no way similar to the one in the steel tank.


At our shop, I have seen these trucks with both tanks made of steel; the rear steel tanks are often of less capacity than the plastic ones.

I have seen them with both tanks being plastic; and, I have seen them opposite to mine, with a plastic front and steel rear.


Thus is why, when one is trying to get parts for a fuel-tank, there are dozens of possibles in the Ford catalog.