Its time to reinstall the water/methanol injection in the F250! Originally the system was installed in the tool box where it was safe and out of harms way: But this time, with the aluminum dump bed i dont want the tank in the bed anymore, so i need to come up with a new place for it. So since we swapped the 38 gallon tank in place of the rear tank, that means that technically i dont need the front tank anymore. So, out it came! This frees up a ton of space to install my 12 gallon tank: I took the original fuel lines and made a stubby line to connect the two ports on the diverter valve, so i cant accidentally dump fuel under the truck. This will suffice for now, until i do the e-fuel conversion Mocking things up, this is the plan for the water tank location: It looks like its sticking way up but its not too bad. In its current temporary place its flush with the bottom of the frame rail and clears the bottom of the bed, so this will work, altho i think im going to lower it an inch or two, just for some extra clearance. Now to get a hangar designed and built.... Made a bit of a goofup, seems i designed my sending unit float arm to occupy the same space as the tank rollover vent, so the gauge would only read 3/4 full. So back out it came! Pulled the rollover valve out, and you can see the problem: this was a simple fix though, i just added a bend to the swing arm to move it over and away from the rollover valve: ...and as a finishing touch for the bed, i removed the original 'unleaded fuel only' sticker, and replaced with a new one: The next part of the project is lighting. I need to wire up the bed, but i also need a place to put my license plate, trailer plug and reverse lights I spent some time staring at that space, and started thinking about just building a panel to house my lights & plate, similar to what a traditional dump truck might have Mocking up in steel: Brand new Ford wedgelock pins..... ...means i can rewire a new trailer 7-way, to plug directly into the truck's harness ...and this gray 8-pin connector is the plug for the original bed's tailllights. The plan is to rewire the bed lights to plug directly into this using some more wedgelock pins and connectors Running wires ...and with all wires ran, the panel is now installed! Why have an 18 gallon tank when you can have a 38 gallon one? Let's go! This is a Spectra F26E tank. Fits right into the frame rail, and comes with longer hardware to reuse the original gas tank straps I modified the original sending unit to reach another 6" down to the bottom of the new tank, and then replaced the original float arm with a longer one from a bronco sending unit, altho i had to change the shape of it (bend) to get it to display accurately, while also being able to fit it thru the hole in the tank Sorry i dont have better pics as this is when i broke the lens over my camera, so youll have to wait for the video if you want more info on the sending unit mods. That said, the tank is installed! As you can see, it fits in there nicely and despite being bigger than the bronco tank, doesnt hang down as far: This would be the end of the mods for the swap, except dump bed. Seems theres some aluminum in the way: I had to notch the aluminum frame rail to make room for the filler neck. I also removed the coupling and extension hose to shorten up the filler neck a few inches, and then built a hangar to support the neck: ...and the finished product! Next up i had to finish the hinge. So i started by welding in that second xmember i made a while back, along with a piece of 4"x.250" plate underneath the whole frame, to give myself a place to bolt the bed to the hinge. In this pic its just clamped in place: With that sorted, i drilled holes for four bolts (the previous dump conversion only used two), and i then added two gussets to it, to stiffen the area up: So this means, with the use of the gantry, i can now tilt the bed! So now theres two more issues to deal with. #1 is the front bed support: Currently i just have it sitting on a piece of 2x2 box. Im probably going to use a longer piece, and then make tabs to bolt it to the frame + make guides to align the front of the bed. it doesnt necessarily need it but will make it more stable when loaded, The second is dealing with the mount for the scissor. Looking closely you can see it almost lines up with the existing xmembers in the bed: Im planning on building a new one to fit the bed better, but it gave me an idea. So i grabbed one of the old frame rails i cut off, and made two more xmembers out of it: ...and welded in! They line up with two of the small i-beams that support the bed floor, so theyre welded into the frame rails, and those beams, which should stiffen up the middle section of the bed significantly: My next move is going to be to build a new frame for the scissor that will bolt to those two xmembers, and then the bed will go up and down by itself again! |
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