Auxiliary tank

hydrowill

hydrowill

Forum Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Messages
201
Location
Melbourne
Has anyone had a long range/auxiliary tank fitted to their suby?

Would be great to increase my outbacks range and considering the spare no longer fits the spare well is free.

:) Will.
 
Hey Will,

I would love to rip out the round metal sheeting for the spare wheel and replace it with a flat bit of steel allowing for a rectangular section tank to be fitted underneath...

Couple problems with my plans:
1) Need to fit a spare wheel carrier first
2) Not sure about compliance / eng certification
3) Custom jobs cost a bomb!

So instead, one can carry jerry cans!

Pedro.
 
Yeah I think you would struggle to get it through by cutting the floor pan.

Would be so good to be able to keep driving and not worry about jerry cans!

Spare wheel carrier is on the cards :P just got to practice my welds a bit more :)
 
Roto Pax might be a good option.


viewFile.html
 
Last edited:
I recall that years ago there was talk of adapting a donut lpg tank for the spare wheel well. Don't know if it happened or not but is certainly a possibility; so - who's first?
 
That's often been a wonder of mine... how a Subaru would go on LPG.... I have seen the odd one or two floating around with their little red sticker... but does any1 have any info on Subaru Lpg conversions?
 
Venom that looks like the goods. seems like it would be fairly removable too.

Should be pretty easy to hook it up with a little fuel pump to top up the main tank.

How to fill it though?
 
Yea well the fuel filler is on top of that ATL tank, so you need to stick the nozzel in the back of your car. Not really ideal, especially for a wagon. And pretty useless if you want to load the car up with gear.

I think this one is really more suited as a race car fuel cell, and probably not legal in Aus.

Personally i think it would be better with the hose fitting on the flat side of the D rather than on top, and then you set up some sort of transfer system to and from the main fuel tank.

I reckon' custom fabricated is the way to go, with say a gravity feed to the main tank, and then a pull type fuel pump built into auxillary to draw fuel up from the main tank.
 
I have always wondered about this myself. I think jerry cans are the way to go though, doesn't really seem worth the degree of effort it would take.
 
I guess it all depends on how much a tank would be to fabricate. The rest I could imagine would just be fiddly.

Yeah Matt but I'd love to put something in the well to use the space and not worry about it. Unloading the whole boot is not fun to access the area.
 
Running a thristy H6 has made me think of this many times.

What I do is carry a 20 lt jerry can on the rear carrier, and sometimes 2 x 10 lt containers on the roof. Not perfect.

Possibilities include:

  • putting a 68 lt outback tank in: not sure whether it would fit the foz body shape.
  • Putting a custom tank in the spare wheel well. I think paffoh or spinners might have been looking into this. I wouldn't do it because I like to carry two spares.
  • modifying the exisiting tank to use the space below it and above the tailshaft that is created by a body lift, but i think this would only be a goon bag size space.
  • fitting an auxiliary tank internal to the vehicle in the space of a forester where the "umbrella holder" currently is: i.e. between the wheel arches in the rear. IMO the umbrella holder is fricken useless becuase there are always things on top of it, especially when you have a cargo barrier fitted. (Anyway, i reckon the BEST use of that space would be an array of small sealed deep cycle batteries.)
I've thought about this a lot, and can't see any other real options. there are also collpasable fuel bladders, but the only advantage of these over jerry cans is that you can store them in a small space when they are empty.

It would be nice if someone made a long range foz tank, but I can't see it happening.
 
Dulagarl, some years ago I had a stationwagon (it shall remain nameless because it wasn't a Subaru, but a stationwagon all the same). The only effective way of an LPG tank was to have it between the wheel arches behind the back seat. It was a great car on fuel, fantastic savings and basically a far greater range because it was a dual fuel conversion. I did explore the wheel well avenue at that time, but basically you need quite a large capacity gas tank because you need more litres of gas to go the same distance as a litre of petrol.

After having a stationwagon with that type of conversion, I would never go that option again. I am too fond of the multiple uses I get from having the whole rear of a stationwagon with the ability to fold the seats down.

Our last trip away was by far the best I have had in all my years of carting camping gear/kids/dogs and us. It was the first time ever my head wasn't done in by how everything was going to fit. We hooked up to a trailer. NOW... there is room for extra fuel in a jerry can so that in the middle of the night on a long dark stretch when there is no petrol station open there is no worry from that perspective either. We don't spend half our lives loading and unloading so we can sleep in the back of the car. Just brilliant. A tad extra cost in fuel to tow behind, but didn't slow us down greatly.

I suppose it comes down to how many people travel in your car.. because this greatly affects your load space. For us, the trailer is a great option. If there was only 2 people travelling all the time, I reckon a rear mounted jerry can would be the order of the day :-)

I agree tho... even in our Outback a longer range tank would be a brilliant addition!
 
I was thinking of a long range tank for the Triton but have instead opted for 20L jerrys and a Tanami fuel transfer pump to save me having to lift the buggers. You attach your air pump to the Tanami and it empties a 20L in about 1.5 minutes.

https://www.tanamipump.com.au/
 
Often on interstate trips I have a box trailer in tow. I have often thought of having the auxilary fuel tank in the trailer with a reserve electric switch that can swap to it if need be. Or even having an LPG tank in the trailer remotely connected to the car. A trailer could hold a big tank and you could ditch it once back in the city.

Anyone ever hear of remote fuel tanks in a trailer connected to the car as an auxiliary?
 
I would be interested to see what you come up with PigSti. Due to the ever increasing cost of fuel and the way that it can fluctuate by 20 cents a liter over night I have been thinking about putting a tank on a 6x4 trailer allowing me to stock pile some fuel while it is cheap or when the supermarkets are giving big discount vouchers. Being able to tow it to the service station and then fuel all the cars and motorbikes from it would be great.

As far as an auxiliary donut style LPG tank is concerned. I know a few friends who have recently converted their (non subaru) cars to dual fuel using a direct injection set up and have picked up hp and are getting quite good economy. For those of us who are living in Victoria and get the rebate on converting your car to LPG this could be a good option. Another benefit of this system is LPG offers excellent tuning for turbo vehicles and may offer some better performance off road as well as extending range. Jerry cans are cheaper but you could have a lot of fun taking the complicated route ;)
 
If the tank is fixed to the trailer you will have issues. This is why motorsport teams carry drums rather than having an onboard tank in their trailer. Something like pretty much becoming a tanker and having to display hazardous liquid signs. Not 100% on the exact details but I have come across this on more than one occasion. I think you would really struggle to have a fixed tank in the trailer let alone have it tethered to the cars fuel system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top