Under Bed Fuel Cell Install W/O removing bed

[gruveb]

I don't have a lot of equipment or experience, but do have two very rusty saddle tanks. I purchased the 16 gallon fuel cell from summit, with the sending unit included and went to install it in my 69 C10 this weekend. I wanted to see if the tank could be installed from under the bed. It can.

My truck has a two inch body lift on it, that I really want to remove, but that helped me today, a lot. The lift is horrible, someone welded in some pieces of square steel and some scrap to keep the bed equal distance above the frame. You can see it in the first pics.

I had to notch one cross member as it was right over the fuel filler. I knew this was going to be the case. I also removed the cross member closest to the tailgate by grinding off the rivets and then using a brass drift and a BFH. This cross member often requires trimming, as did mine, and is one of the mounts for the fuel cell. By removing it, it allowed me to get the tank brackets in place from under the truck. I then slid the member back into position and bolted it down.

The tank is installed, I used 1/2 aluminum fuel line for the plumbing, and all is good. My only two issues are that because of the lift, I can't reach the hatch easily and also, there is such a huge space between the bed and the tank, I have to use a funnel to fill it up.

I'll be plumbing the filler components very soon.