Rear tank clearance issues.

[Orence1]

I have the 17 gal. LMC rear tank conversion on my 72 LWB. I am planning on rebuilding the wood bed. My issue is accessing the bolts that lay between the top of the tank and the bottom of the cross members. The other issue is the fuel line connection on the top of the tank. It looks like I might be able to lower the tank partially with the line hooked up to allow enough space to get to the nuts that hold the board bolts. I would appreciate any advice on how you accomplished this if you have the same set-up in your truck. Thanks in advance for the help.

[SS Tim]

Remove bed, replace parts and reinstall bed. You really don't want to do it on the truck anyway. With a wood kit and prepunched strips it should go well.

[swamp rat]

I don't know if you are working on a 1/2 or 3/4T?

Accessing the second most rear set of bed bolts is a royal pita with a tank on, in fact i cannot do it. i ended up having to make the rear cross member removable so i could take it off to reach the bed bolts and then it is still a pain contorting yourself to get the reach needed, even taking the rear cross member off is a bit of a pita too with the bed on.

On mine (3/4T) the rivits were cut off and replaced with bolts and nuts but because the shape of the cross member i couldn't access the underside of the top to put the nut and loc washer on, so i had to weld a nut on the bottom of each side (top two only) of the upper cross member holes so i could thread a bolt in from the sides.