how to safely remove a gas tank in the driveway?

[Nodnarb76]

I'm trying to decide what is the best way to go.
I need to swap a fuel pump on my 87 Suburban with a 40 gallon tank.
It currently has about 20 gallons in it.

I was going to pay someone to put it on a lift and swap it for me, but being cheap and wanting to do as much myself as I can, got me wondering if anyone has a safe, easy wat to remove a fuel tank from the bottom?

I was thinking of rigging something up on my floor jack to help lower it, but not sure how to make sure it won't slide off the jack.

[Keith Seymore]

I would probably get the gas out of it regardless (siphon, or rig up a separate fuel pump). Or - cut a hole in the load floor of the suburban to provide access to the fuel pump.

In any case you could make a platform out of a piece of plywood. Add some borders around the side to capture the tank and securely mount it to your floor jack and you should be good to go. (That's what I do for TH400 transmission removals).

K

[mongocanfly]

Like Keith said...a floor jack and some boards is how I did one on my blazer....its no fun when they have gas in them and it always seems like it's full when you need to pull one..its awkward with gas sloshing around in the tank ...it would be much easier on a lift...

[Nodnarb76]

Thanks guys.
I work for a group of car dealerships and have a good friend who is the manager of one of our Lincoln and Acura stores.
I'm going to ask him if he could just get it done for me for around $200 all in.

I keep having visions of the gas tank falling down and hitting me in the face (like the ice block in "A Million Ways to Die in the West"), and then exploding.

[kazoocruiser]

I did my tank this summer. If you watch enough YouTube videos, you will see there isn't much to dropping a tank.

You do want to drain as much gas out of it as you can. I took the filler neck hose off the tank and siphoned out as much fuel as I could. The tanks aren't that heavy when empty, so a jack kind of is unnecessary.

[Nodnarb76]

Well, I changed my plan.
I was looking around at Harbour Freight, and saw one of these Lift tables.
In the past this is what we used at the shop I used to work for when we had to remove the tank.
After the nice girl at the counter gave me a 20% discount came to $135.00.

So now I should be able to safely remove the tank and have saved quite a bit of $$$. Also will have a lift table for future projects now.

[Mr_Rich]

Be prepared for a dirty job. The access to the connections is very limited as well. I did mine five years ago. You may need to replace the filler hose since the rubber gets rock hard and very difficult to remove or connect when that happens. There are websites specifically for fuel tank hoses. I found one and it was very helpful. I used a piece of hardwood as a drift pin to unlock the lock ring so as not to damage it. Just tapped it loose.
It will really be safer to handle the tank if you pump out most of the gas though.

[Dead Parrot]

I would definitely consider Keith's suggestion on a floor access hole once the tank is dropped. Just in case you need to revisit the sender hole at some point. With the tank out of the way, no worries about accidentally cutting something best left uncut.