ive dropped my tank 3 times int he course of a few months during my engine swap, and even before it once to replace the intank pump. altho i did just put in a pickup line inside the pump, i wont ever have to drop the tank again. I will say the drop gets much easier after you do it once, but i see why you dont wanna mess your exhaust up considering its welded.. i ws gonna cut the floorboard, but with the time it takes to remove the body panels in carpet it didnt seem like a good idea.. in your case i think its good, id rather spend more time with my kid then spend alot of time fixing my car so.. too each his own i guess, but family always comes first, and a little work that no one will ever see isnt a bad idea if it saves you time on your car and gives you time to do other things.. good luck with it pics plz!!

 

I thought the external pump idea was great until I mounted the T-Rex external on my 4th gen. Windows up or down, I can scarcely hear the stereo. Everybody asks "what's that noise?"

Much insulation and duct tape later, it's tolerable. But it just goes to show you that nothing is perfect. By the way, since you have to cut into the fuel line and tap into the electrical system for the external pump, by the same people's standards, and external pump is a HACK JOB!! HACK JOB!! HACK JOB!!


Troy
So Cal

 

Here's some photos of the mod done correctly [except for the blue car using rubber lines, but it shows the location of the cut very well]. Since the fuel system is typically 40-50 psi, AN fittings on the feed and return lines is appropriate. In my mod, welded AN fittings were used on the tank side to minimize potential problem areas. FYI had I done this mod prior to driving cross-country, it would have enabled me to install a failed fuel pump in the middle of the desert as a roadside repair of spending $1,000+ to have it done in Las Vegas a thousand miles from home. Don't let the chatter of reading-deficient mental midgets and genetically disadvantaged brothers unable to stay on topic ... be more than a brief irritant -- the last laugh will be yours when you're out cruising somewhere on vacation, the in-tank pump dies and 30-minutes later you're back on the road again.

 

Do it right and don't put some sort of sealer on some cheesy sheet metal. Why, because when I got my current 88 Trans Am the fuel gauge didn't work due to a semi botched fuel pump install. So I was pulling apart the car to get it descent looking again and I found that someone before had hacked the hole for the fuel pump replacement. When I pulled the entire upper carpet off I saw the damage to the rest of the hump from this hacked job.
The corners had several cracks in them, and had warped. The sheet metal behind the seat was warping horribly, so bad that the paint was actually coming off.
Take it for what you want, but I welded a panel into place of that hack job and will never look back, and will never cut any sort of hole in that area.

 

thats why i would install the inline pump once and be done ...but all honesty how many times has anyone had their pump go out on them ??????

once in a car that is 12+ years old hmmm well if you replace the pump with another quality pump then i seriously doubt your going to be changing it again in the next month ...LOL

you probably wont even own the car when the next one needs changed...

 

changed pumps 3 times now, dropped the tank 5 times. yeah, I should've done the access door mod originally

 

Solder and heat shrink, the only way to fly

 

Who was that on here that went through 4 Walbro pumps in less than a year? Some get lucky and others get very unlucky.

 

Just cut the hole real clean. Used a dremel at low speeds so it wouldn't spark at the corners and jig sawed that puppy. Took about 5 minutes and that includes getting my tools and pulling the carpet back. After staring at my fuel pump in awe and wondering how the hell do I take it out like the monkeys when they paraded around the great monolith, I figured out you needed to twist the lock. I tried to pull it up and the damn hardlines won't let it come up. What do I cut the hardlines with? Im too cautious to try and use the dremel. Any suggestions?

 

Just got he hardlines off and the fuel pump is out of the tank . Took the dremel to it at very low speeds, too about 20 minutes but its out. Just need to put the new pump in and im done .

 

got any pics? Don't you still need to fabricate/mount a door?

 

Well, yea, but that takes about what? 4 minutes. It looks just exactly like the ones posted at the beginning of the topic with the fourthgen install.

 

You *Dremeled* to cut the hardlines instead of disconnecting at the front of the tank under the car? That's ballsy, heh. If so, what's the plan to reconnect them?

 

Pasky -- here's 1498 reasons why a tank access panel is a good idea for cars on long trips.

 

personally I love this idea. if my car got tons of use I would do this to it. I just recently had my pump changed to a walbro 225lph unit and man is that loud in comparison to the old unit. I can't imagine ever putting in an external pump. had a '98 blazer with a weak external pump and it was the most annoying sound ever!!!!!!! can't imagine what a race pump would sound like. all you would hear is an annoying high pitch whinning sound, might even be louder than some peoples exhaust systems. as for dropping the tank some of us just don't have all the equipment to drop the tank because you have to take the exhaust off and reweld hangers, drop the rear, possibly remove brake lines, etc. if done well I think this is the best solution. oh and I am an engineer at iowa state university so I know a little something about doing this kind of stuff. this is what us engineers call design for maintainabilty (thank you ME270), something the original engineers should have done!

 

Went very slow on the dremel, I also only made the initial cuts with it and finished them with a hack saw. Plan to reconnect them is I got a flare tool in the garage .

 

I didn't have to cut my exhaust to drop my tank. All I did was unbolt the tail-pipe hangers and the 2 bolts that hold it to the cat. I then unbolted my panhard bar, removed the wheels, unbolted the brake line bracket, and drooped the rear. I just moved my completely welded (borla) exhaust off too one side because I was too lazy to unbolt the LCA and shock . Once the muffler was over near the passengers side I removed the tank. It was rather simple compared to doing an engine swap. In fact I'd rate it easier than fitting up a complete exhaust and easier than getting a trans bolted to an engine while in the car.
I'm actually kind of disapointed people are cutting the hard lines. All they need to do is slide under the rear of the car and undo the fittings at the back of the tank. Then the whole setup can be pulled up through the new access. Kind of like how I moved my exhaust out of the way, only smaller.

 

I cut them because I want this accessed all from the top. I don't want to have to drop down below to remove the lines if the pump needs changing. With the flare tool I can put some fittings on and just unscrew them.

 

Feedback from people that have tried that said the hard lines are too long and shaped in the wrong angles to remove from the top unless the access panel is cut really huge. So in the interests of maintaining the relative integrity of the body panels, most people opt for a small panel. In a tubbed race car with roll cage it wouldn't make any difference, although those guys are using fuel cells and huge external pumps anyway. Yes, it is more work to do the connections correctly and safely, but it only has to be done once.

 

Don't use rubber line please.
Go with a male-male union setup. It'll be a lot stronger and you'll never have to worry about the rubber leaking or getting old.

 

Can't flare a rubber line .

 

i cut my hard lines and used compression fitings to put them back together.i've never had any problem with them leaking

 

But you're suposed to flare hard line gently if you don't have a bead welder. That way the hose doesn't pull off. I wasn't sure what you were going to do so I was just letting you know how I'd go about it.

 

On the major inlet/outlet hard lines I installed welded AN fittings on the tank side, then male unions to connect with AN flared connectors [NOT compression fittings, which I trust even less than rubber]. The other two hard lines are connected with FI rubber hose and I didn't have a bead welder, the ends of the hard lines received hard wire "O"s soldered about 1/4-inch from the ends, so the rubber can't pull off. Can't stress safety enough with high pressure gasoline.

The funny thing is, after going through all these gyrations to make the car more easily repairable, what I'd really like is a 25-gallon fuel cell, instead of the 15-gallon hard tank.

 

Ain't that the truth! I miss the 21 gal tank I had in my 79 T/A.

 

Just finished it up last night and man the new pump kicks ***. Drilling the holes was cake and I gooped the grap out of it with rtv so it seals nice and tight. I feel very good knowing if I ever need to change the pump its gonna take me a total of 15 minutes.

 

gonna post a pic of this "mod".....?

i thought you guys were talking about putting in a door like the imports you were all comparing this too .......

how is cutting a hole and gooping the crap out of it with rtv a mod thats a hack.....

 

 

I never said I was going to put a hinged compartment door in, you are delusional. My install looks exactly the same as the link with the fourthgen install and im quite happy, if you wish to troll, theirs plenty of other threads out there, I will not succumb to your ridicule.

To be on topic, im quite satisfied with the walbro 255 lt/hr pump. Its even more quiet then my stock v6 pump.

 

I'm glad I stumbled across this post, too funny to pass up. I went the route of cutting a huge gigantic hole in the back off my car. It was quite possibly the best part of all of the work I have done to this car. I love how the words "reciprocating saw" just roll off of the tongue. I let out alot of aggression with an arsenal of power tools at my disposal. BTW, its my hacked up LS1'd piece of crap, and I love it.

Also, I have dropped the tank the other way before, and I'll have to say it was a boring process at best.

 

Thank you, you just made my car worth more!

 

yeah because there are only 100 thirdgens left in the world

 

Dont mention it. I think I'll go cut a hole in the IROC and make your car worth even more.

Whats the big deal anyways? It's not your car is it? And dont give anymore of that ridiculous crap about "my car is worth more now". Go find out just how many thirdgens were produced. I'll say somewhere around 2 million. Your car is not going to be worth much anytime soon, especially with that non #'s matching motor and tranny.

Hows the car running Pasky?

 

Great, I love it .

 

you are a moron

so you think that taking the rear end down and sliding out the gas tank is the right way because its 200 times harder

dumbest statement on earth

how about GM should have put an access panel there in 1st place, because now its a 5 minute job to get at the fuel sender on the tank, instead of 2 hours, stainless steel, weather sealed, and perfectly matched to the sheet metal

 

how about weather stripping like a normal human being, same type used on car doors

 

Gee thanks Mr. 383backinblack, without you no one here would have any direction. YOu shouldnt call names, it will get you reported.