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Bruce Stumpp did this to his speedster .....he came up with a unique and inexpensive center rain drain too.
Dog dish? Like mine.......I'll have to post a pic.
In my research on hood-fill gas caps, I found two problem areas, both of which are easily fixable: 1) outside roller caps are accessible, not locked. For security purposes, you can buy a small, keyed insert cap that would prohibit someone from tampering with your fuel, and 2) rain diversion. The blue Speedster likely has a gasket around the hood opening. Even with that, rain will enter the trunk around the cap. The "dog dish" Danny refers to is a simple, low-tech method of diverting any water that enters the trunk around the fill cap. It looks like a dog dish, and is tightly fitted around the filler neck with a drain tube that leads under the car. GT Werks sells a nice example.
No really, I bought a stainless steel dog dish from Pet Smart, removed the plastic surround, and trimmed it to fit. I put a 1979 Bus filler gasket around the Spyder tank filler neck, and trimmed the upper edge with rubber channel. Same stuff as supplied by Vintage Spyders for the license light trim. The steel is very thin and cuts easily with tin snips. I also put a drain fitting in it and a clear hose down under the front beam. Total cost was less than $20.
On the security issue, I just don't worry about it. Maybe I should, but 9 years and 32K says not to. I mean someone would have to be pretty mean and motivated to mess with it. Probably a lot easier to key it.......
P.S.: I really like that custom larger tank! It looks brazed, which takes a good bit of Oxygen to do that much work, but looks worth it. Got to be 15 gallons now. If I had that I could do 350-400 highway miles on one tank!
Just came across this. We are actually fabricating new aluminum fuel cells with center GT356 style gas caps that screw on constructed of billet aluminum. However they will have our 550 Spyder polished flip up gas cap as an option with filler neck.
If you would like a filler neck and flip cap, please let us know. Simply use a VW fuel sender gasket on our filler necks, we can provide one as well.
-Daniel
I did a center fill back in 2007 (see photos below). Having a more realistic tank would have been nice but that would have taken up more space. I wanted the look of the center fill and the ability to full-up without having to undo the straps and open the hood.
The tube is heavy duty steel tubing, cap is an original 356, the guts were cut out of a VW cap and welded into the 356 cap, the top of a VW filler neck was cut and welded into the top of the heavy steel tube, the handle on the cap is just flat steel that was drilled and welded on top of the 356 cap, the dish is from an aluminum mess kit with a drain down through the battery box, tabs were welded to the side of the steel tubing to hold the aluminum dish, gasket was cut from some foam insulation. The hood is hollow so filled the gap around the opening with wood strips, finished off with bondo.
Lessons learned: It is easiest to weld the tubing to the tank with it sitting at the bottom of the tank so drill a bunch of holes near the top of the tubing inside of the tank to let air escape (or you will only be able to fill to the air level caught under the top of the tank); it is tricky to get the correct location of the hole in the hood and hold where needed for welding so take your time, tack weld and try it.
I used a typical fuel cell filler . I built the top part of the tank using the bottom VW portion. Remember to seal the inside of the tank when the fabrication is done.
Joe,
Never realized you did yoru tank like that. It looks good.
Thanks Bruce. With the sheet metal technique I've picked up that 550 tank would be a piece of cake.
You know, Carlisle is only 44 days away. I'm just saying...
Our Seduction Motorsports aluminum fuel cell should be in production any day now. We made a couple prototypes, tested them, and CAD engineered them.
We will be water jetting all our tanks, press break/bend them on our digital press break. Then tig welded along all seams.
This way they are perfect and within 0.0156" tolerance. We are making the filler plate removable, these will have built in sumps/serge tanks, and can use universal fuel safe baffling foam.
We will have 2 gas caps available and 4 options of filler necks. 3 options of mounting straps (aluminum with optional leather behind them), and 3-5 leather color choice options. They will work for Type 1, Type 4, and Subaru engine external in-line fuel pumps so you can utilize your existing fuel pumps as well to keep your costs down.
One gas cap will be the 356 GT style screw on cap, CNC machined from aluminum, the other gas cap option will be the auth. looking 550 Spyder flip cap with latch.
Fuel senders we're still deciding on at this moment if we want to continue to use VW style senders or switch to electric automatic adjusting fuel sending units (either way you can just plug in your existing wiring).
The goal is to provide a cost efficient aluminum racing fuel cell (leather/aluminum straps will be optional) with a quality finish and universal for Beck, Vintage, Thunder Ranch, SM550 Outlaws, and Fibersteel based cars. Even if you do not have a hole in the hood, you will be able to choose the low rise filler neck and keep the screw on cap below the hood. Brushed finish, polished finish, or even powder coated... we could even anodize them if need be.
Should have pictures here soon. I will keep everyone updated. Email me at daniel@seducitonmotorsports.com and I will ad you to the list of interested buyers so I can email updated pics as they come.
Thank you,
-Daniel
Joe,
I didn't want to miss an opportunity. :>
Hope you can join us down the road one of these years. I know what it's like raising a family.
