The Plan

The idea is to get as much fuel capacity as possible into the smallest place I could. The only area I really have left is behind the front seats. With the cage incorporating the shock mounts and the rear section being a bolt in unit this made the most sense. Like most things I seem to come up with this required yet another custom item. Luckily for me I ran into a guy who had access to CNC machinery and worked with stainless steel. A deal was struck and I was soon to be the owner of a custom 1.6mm stainless tank ( with matching box more on that later ).

The above diagram shows the shape of the tank. The front as you look at it is raked backwards 14 degrees. This is to allow it to sit as close as possible to the seats. The sump or right as look at it will allow me to get the dregs out of the tank.

	Front View - This profile shows the profile of the tank from front on. You can see the sump area. It is only small but it is all so close to stuff that there was no real choice.
	Side View - Here you can see the rake angle of 14 degrees. The tanks was made out of cardboard first and the height was 200mm when it was pushed sideways to clear the seats and exhaust the height changed to 194 mm.
	Top View - this shows how far along the base the bend for the sump begins. The was dictated by the up travel of the rear trailing arms.
	Baffles - As most of the buggies use will be off road I have to make sure that there is some good baffling in there to stop the fuel sloshing around. I will be using 3 of these which will mean there 4 compartments each of about 15L. This will ensure that  there is very minimal sloshing effect.  If you look at the picture you will see how they have been designed. The corners are removed to allow fuel to move between the sections. The lower ones are removed so as fuel can move all the time and the upper ones are removed to allow the fuel to fill up from one section to the other. It is important to ensure that enough is removed to ensure that a fuel bowser does not get surge back when one section fills up. The reason you remove the corners is that then the baffles give the tank heaps of strength as they act as an internal wall.
	Fuel Pick up - this will be done by 2 8mm lines, one of 160mm in length and one of 230mm. This will allow me to have a good reserve capacity of about 15L which should be enough to get me out of trouble. This will be run through a tap or solenoid, haven't decided yet, either way the default will be set at reserve so if it malfunctions I get max fuel.
	Fuel Gauge - will be a VDO unit, I will be using an arm style as they are much cheaper than teh cylindrical ones. They come with top and bottom flanges so fitting should be pretty easy, blank nut serts will be used to ensure it all seals well.
	Breather - this will be a funny setup which will take into account the off road use of the buggy, it should stop any fuel spilling out as is common with most VW tanks. It will draw through the filler cap which is from a ZZR 1100 motor bike.
	Fuel return - the tank will also have an 8mm fuel return line, this will enter the tank and end there, this will allow for a Fuel injected engine to be added later if required.
	Filler Breather and over all plan - the filler also needs a breather, this will be a 20mm tube that runs down the inside on the filler line and into the tank. The purpose of this is to allow the air to exit the tank quickly when you are filling up thus preventing a sort of vapor lock.  That will mean there is a 20mm tube and an 8mm tube running up the filler tube. The 8mm will join into the vented cap and the 20mm will end just inside the cap. This way when you put in the fuel hose it will not block the filler vent and air can run freely out of it

If all goes to plan the tank should hold just over 60L with a 15L reserve. This should give me at least 500km range under most driving conditions. If you look at the bottom picture you will see the box that will sit on top of the tank. It will be big enough for a fridge or esky, have a ribbed bottom and stand off in the lid. It will be made of 1.2mm stainless and be fully lockable and weather proof. This will mean that I can have piece of mind when leaving the   buggy un attended for periods of time. It will also keep the weather out of my stuff, not that is ever rains in sunny Queensland.

A big thanks must go to Daniel for his help and skillful stainless work and Wes for his input and sketching work. I will add the auto cad drawings when they are done.