Rufus The Doofus

I’ve been working on getting the auxiliary fuel tank installed in our BJ42 the past couple of days. It’s mounted and the plumbing is done. I still have to hook up the fuel gauge and the transfer pump.

We’re going to be taking some long trips in our Landcruiser. The first is coming up in a month and I’m still working on getting the BJ42 ready for the trip. We run biodiesel blends in our diesel vehicles. The plan for this secondary tank is to fill it with B100 or B99 and then blend with regular diesel in the primary tank to get a ratio somewhere between B25 and B50 depending on when we might be able to refill on B100.

I ordered the 21 gallon long range fuel tank from Man-a-Fre. It wasn’t cheap but it’s definitely a prime example of ‘you get what you pay for’. It’s a very well-made and well-designed tank. It’s fairly easy to install too since it comes with everything you need to mount it in the back of your 40 series Cruiser.

I had to modify the exhaust in my BJ42 to make room for the tank. The 3B diesel engine in our Cruiser is turbocharged so I decided to just cut the muffler off and run a straight pipe out the back below the bumper. This worked out really well. Now the exhaust points straight back instead of to the side which makes it possible for me to start the thing in the garage. The previous setup would fill the garage with exhaust smoke. I’d have to push the thing out into the driveway before starting it which was a real drag. It’s not a problem any longer.

Man-a-Fre sells an optional kit to setup the tank as a more traditional secondary/optional fuel tank configuration. I didn’t want to go that route and instead installed mine as a transfer tank configuration. I mounted an electric fuel pump above the rear axle and plumbed it into the primary/stock tank on the Landcruiser. I can flip a switch inside the vehicle to turn on the pump and move fuel from the secondary tank to the primary. The pump is a 4 gpm model. I’ll run it for a minute to ninety seconds as I pull into a gas station and then top off the front tank with regular ULSD pump diesel. This will be soooo much easier than carrying five gallon cans of biodiesel. Hopefully we’ll be able to find sources of B100 along the way on our trip to top off the back tank.

I don’t think the tank will be a problem with ground clearance. I don’t intend to do any crazy rock climbing or anything like that. The tank does appear to be stout enough to stand up to that kind of abuse if you’re so inclined.

Tomorrow I hope to finish up the wiring and get to work on switching the remaining stock fuel lines to biodiesel compatible materials. Our cruiser is a 1982 model so there’s some rubber components in there that won’t be happy with running biosdiesel. Then on Wednesday I’ll get started on installing the OME Dakar suspension.

Tags:   auxiliary fuel tank · bj42 · landcrusier · long range tankNo Comments