Fuel tank securing

treaze

Newbie
Joined
Apr 20, 2008
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261
Location
Jacksonville
I just received Starbee's fuel tank. Now I'm pondering the means to secure it in the mount. I'm thinking two independent bungees, each hooked to an aft lower hole and then up thru the handle and looped around the mast. That'd be simple and redundant and light. Does anybody have any more elegant ideas? Incl what size bungee has worked out ok? Each bungee should be sufficient to hold a full tank in place during flight ops.

(And speaking of shocks, also in the pic is my newly installed Starbee shock plate with the vert struts temporarily tied in place--I'm waiting for my 1/2" shock cord from a marine supplier to arrive. I'm going to try to manufacture shock rings a la J-3 shock absorber system. The topic of another post-to-come.)
 

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I suggest you not use bungees, in a worse case scenario such as a roll over you want the tank to stay in place, bungees won't guarantee that. You especially don't want the tank to get into the prop during an accident.
 
treaze :
I know you are going trying to go UL with your bird and any thing you add puts on more weight. But a aluminum strap would be great. Would not have to be that big. Something to go under the handle.
Just my 2 cents. :noidea:
 
Fuel tank securing

Good thoughts. What I'm visualizing now is something along the lines of a metal battery hold-down strap, I think. Maybe padded with something not affected by fuel. Something with an over-center latch, for ease of removing/installing the tank, but that can be secured with a pin or something.
 
Gasoline will eat the bunjees up! I had this happen to me at Clewiston Fla. back in 89. That is when the gas can,[boat tank] fell off on take off.Not a pretty sight!
 
Ratchet straps were our choice. Easy to get, cheap, strong, durable and as easy as a bungee to remove.
 
Fuel tank securing

Thanks for all the valuable thoughts. I ordered some black 1" nylon tubular webbing today from Gear Express, a mountain climbing supplier (I wanted something I could trust). Not too sure about the hardware yet--there's a lot of too-wimpy or too-heavy stuff out there.
 
Fuel tank securing

Thanks, Alan. Good site.

Btw, my new Starbee tank has what seems like a lot of slop side to side in the mount (about 5/8"). :Cry: Front to back is ok. So I was thinking of re-doing my G7-3 cross pieces to fit the tank. Maybe Starbee's tank is a different size than Ralph's ("Eipper GT-style fuel tank (LEAF 30249)").
 
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treaze : Hey I know what you mean!:Cry::Cry::Cry: experimental is the key word here :lol:
 
That tank, although expensive, is a very well made piece.

My tank tray made to Ralph's plans seemed to fit just about right. Over time though (say 3 years) a bolt head (if I remember correctly) rubbed its way through the bottom of the tank. When I got the new tank, I cut the bottom off the old one, rotated it, and used it for a spacer/protector for the new one. So I'd like to see you at least pad the bottom of the tank with something.

The design does include the concept of easy removal of the tank for refueling purposes when away from home and your gas cans.

I have always used the suggested regular old bungees. I never had a problem with interaction with gas, but of course they lose their elasticity after a while. I have seen other Bee owners that have used wratchet type straps both vertically and horizontally and if kept tight, I'm sure this will produce a more secure mounting.

Your hangar buddies will be jealous when you don't have to hoist your gas cans up to shoulder height.

Since this tank does not include a sump for clean out and testing, be sure to use a little "rock" type filter on the end of your pick up tube (and weight it down) as well as an inline filter before the pump. Along with always using Mr. Funnel, this has been a flawless system.
 
Rick - Thanks for the input. Obviously we have different installations. I wonder how. Mine is definitely very loose, plus there's just no way a bolt head could contact my tank. Oh, well. Anyway, I had been thinking of bonding some sort of rubber-type material to the top surfaces of the bottom of the mount, to discourage movement & rubbing, etc. Relative motion is not a good thing, so I want my tank to stay put and not vibrate against the aluminum. I'm planning to go the webbing route, and have been researching ratchets that Resasi mentioned. And yeah, I had planned on using Mr. Funnel--I want to keep my fuel quality up there.
 
A tie down as used to strap a kayak to a roofrack works great. Just make sure you cut the end short enough so that it cannot go through the prop.
 

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treaze, I just took all the pieces down the road to the local powder coating place and asked them to make them bright yellow. Came back really good.

What I really like about the powder coating is the corrosion resistance and ease of cleaning. I often fly along the beach and the few bits I didn't powder coat started corroding really quickly.
 
I have used tanks with no sumps for many years and to prevent problems with dirt and water I clean it every 5 or 6 fuelings by tilting it so that one corner is the low point and using a squeez bulb pump on a peice of 5/16 copper tube I pump about a quart into a clear bottle to see when it is clean. I still use an in line filter, since I started doing this I have not had an engine failure due to fuel starvation in over 5000 hours.
 
Fuel tank securing

I finished making shorter cross beams, so the overall outside dims of the tank mount are now 11-3/16" wide x 11-1/2" front to back. That cradles my new Starbee tank reasonably well. Although, the tank corners have a very large radius and the tank bottom is nowhere near flat, which gives it a propensity to slop and tilt all over the place. I'm not happy with that aspect of the tank. But with it adequately secured, hopefully that shouldn't be a problem.

And speaking of which, after much pondering, I made new horizontal beams, too. These have the aft-most 1/4" hole on the sides instead of the top. Then I put a roller on a bolt between these holes, exactly like the upper restraint system roller on the seat braces. So my intent is to loop my new webbing, which arrived today, around the roller. I have to come up with some hardware and ratchets for doing all that now.
 

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treaze :
Great like to see it when you get a chance. :yo:
 
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