Tank for on-site fueling?

[Fallon]

I upgraded from a white plastic 55 gallon tank with a hand pump to a 300 gallon tank on a stand at the shop. I haven't gotten around to calling the fuel truck yet & both are dry. Using some small plastic cans & stopping by the gas station a mile away until I fill the tanks in the shop up.

In the mean time I've been looking at some of the truck bed tanks a bit. I need to re-fuel on-site a bit as well. Not a need for a lot of fuel & a lot of my jobs I just road the tractor to (so wouldnt have the tank on the truck anyway).

Looked at a few 30 gallon tanks online, but haven't been able to convince myself they are quite worth the price tag yet. I can't see the need for any more than 40-50 gallons. The beater F250 has a utility bed on it that is 4'x8' for bed space. Its likely to get upgraded to a a non-beater 3/4 ton in the next year, maybe 2.

Realistically I can probably get by with 3 cans in the bed to get me through a day, but it gets tedious making sure they are full & loaded into the truck. Im often short on time as I'm loading up & taking off. I can't leave cans in the bed as sun eats them up, potential for theft .

Any thoughts on the extra cost for an aluminum tank over a steep tank? Worth it for minimizing rust or weight?

Any other thoughts or suggestions for easily fueling your machine on-site?

 

[marchanna]

Here’s my set up for onsite fuelling. 300 gallon tank was free - It’s a ten-yer-old furnace oil tank from inside someone’s house. Around here insurance companies make you replace them every ten years. No such regulation for diesel storage.

I added a used 25gpm pump (a little overkill) that I found used for $300 with hose and nozzle. Then just this weekend,I added an auto-shutoff nozzle, swivel, and filter/ water separator.


As far as a slip tank goes, I’d just try to find a used one. I see them periodically for one or twi hundred bucks.

 

[mcfarmall]

Thats a nice setup!

 

[Tomtint]

A friend of mine got me a L shaped tank..I think it's about 90-100 gallon, I intend on putting it on the front of my 12k trailer but ended up putting it on a small 5x8 trailer I was not using. It serves my needs well as I will only need to fill it 1-2x a year.

 

[skipperbrown]

I have a square 2' steel cube 55 gallons tank (tractor supply on sale) I mounted on a pallet and I use my pallet forks to put it in/out of my pickup. I make runs to the cheapest diesel place whenever I run out. The tank wasn't very expensive but the fillrite pump was pricey after adding 2 filters. My back will never ever go back to the yellow 5 gallon containers! If you could work up a gravity drain, you could do it on the cheap.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have a square 2' steel cube 55 gallons tank (tractor supply on sale) I mounted on a pallet and I use my pallet forks to put it in/out of my pickup. I make runs to the cheapest diesel place whenever I run out. The tank wasn't very expensive but the fillrite pump was pricey after adding 2 filters. My back will never ever go back to the yellow 5 gallon containers! If you could work up a gravity drain, you could do it on the cheap.

Not much way to get the fuel from truck bed to tractor via gravity since the truck bed would be lower in most instances. A hand pump would be cheaper but not by much. I went the used way and bought 2 each 100 gallon rectangular tanks with 15 GPM pumps/filter/hose/ nozzle. I think I paid about $300 each for them which basically was getting a free tank because the pumps were more than that new.
I used to find them frequently on Craigslist but I have just about quit looking at Craigslist due to the scams and pricing folks want for used.

 

[Fallon]

Not great photos, but you can see the 300 gallon tank on the stand in the back & the 55gal drum strapped to a pallet in front of the stand. The gravity stand & big works better than the hand pump. You can hear the tank on the tractor about to overflow with the quiet gravity fill as opposed to cranking on the hand pump.

But by on-site I mean out where I'm working on a customer's site & not near the fuel in my shop at home.

The drum isnt DOT approved as a transfer tank, not to mention being top heavy. I've thought about some of those 20-25 gallon plastic totes on wheels. But I have a bad back, they are still plastic & going to die from sun or cold & they are almost the price of a proper DOT approved metal transfer tank.

 

[marchanna]

You could just tie down a steel 55 gallon drum in the bed of your truck and use a 12-volt pump. Get an auto-shutoff nozzle like me, and you won’t have to worry about overflowing.

If you wanted to get creative, you could fab up a base frame to enable quick unloading using your tractor.

 

[aczlan]

How about using a semi truck fuel tank? You would need to weld in a bung on top for the pump, but that shouldn't take too long to do.

Aaron Z

 

[FatTire]

Depending on how often you have to refuel at customer sites, maybe consider a combo box. Aluminum is nice but not essential in Colorado. One of the smaller sizes (40 gallon?) would get you through several jobs plus give you locking storage for misc. tools or anything else you might want to have with you on-site. When I was looking for my diesel storage tank these came up on Craigslist at decent prices occasionally.