ISO Styleside SWB w/ Dual Tank owners

I'm hoping to get the assistance from owners of SWB Stylesides with dual tanks.
What I'd like to know are dimensions of the placement of the rear fill door.
Via this post, I'm starting the process of adding a rear tank to my '85 Bullnose. I will probably be eliminating the 16 gal. mid-ship tank and would like to cut the forward fill door and place it in the right location as if it was supposed to be there (rear of wheel well).
Anybody out there that is willing to take some measurements for me?
Thanks in advance!

I am sure you can get that information from any style side even a long bed as the difference between LB & SB was at the front.
So if you can find a truck in a parking lot you can measure it.

I know the difference is at the front of the bed as I used a style side LB ribbed floor to replace the SB wood floor on my flare side.

If you plan on driving the truck and unless you are going bigger that a 19 gallon rear tank is to keep the 16 gallon front tank and make it a true dual tank truck.

I added a 19 gallon rear tank to my flare side along with the factory 16 gallon front making my truck a true dual tank flare side. I used all factory parts so it looks like a factory dual tank truck.
BTW dual tank flare sides were never an option!
Dave ----

Thanks Dave
I was wondering if the short bed was different from the regular bed before or after the wheel well. Now the problem of finding a truck to measure becomes a little less challenging than before, however still challenging. As you are aware, we just don't see that many Bullnoses around these parts, much less one with an aft tank.

So I guess now I'll ask for the help of anyone with a Styleside and an aft tank that can take some measurements for me?

As to keeping the mid-ship tank;

A - I don't want to get into all that is involved with the switches/ valves/ senders/ etc.    and. . . . .

B - I might be remembering this incorrectly, but wasn't there a story on 60 Minutes back in the day showing side impacts with these trucks and the fiery carnage that resulted?

C - I'll be using the Spectra F8D. So now I'll have 33 gallons of explosive liquid back behind me, where it belongs.

Let's see if this helps.  I measured from the bottom of the fender up as it is really hard to get a good reference point on the top of the fender.  I make it out to be 10 1/4" to the bottom of the opening, although parallax makes it look a bit more in this pic.  And that is bending around the piece of trim that is there.




And here's how I measure the distance from the cutout for the taillight, and that is 15 3/4".  Is that what you need?

Thanks for the photos and measurements Gary
As for the verticle dim, could you take it from the top down instead of the bottom up? Using a similar meathod to this

You dont have to use a level, simply something flat that can span across the tailgate and the top of the fender.
The next question I have is whether or not there is any kind of bulge on the inside of the bed that could indicate a pathway for the filler hose. There is something like that in front of the wheel well for the mid-ship tank but nothing for a rear tank in my bed.

Yes, I can measure that - tomorrow.  And check for a bulge, but I'm pretty sure there isn't one.

Here are a couple pictures of how the 19 Gal aft tank is serviced by the tank fill. These are from my file footage so weren't taken for looks.
The larger tank will eliminate the under carriage spare tire location.

Ford trucks have the midship tank inside the frame rails.
GM trucks from the '70's-'80's were involved, but the "expose" was determined to be rigged and NBC admitted as much.

Well, that's one of the hardest things to photograph I've ever tried.  There aren't any precise breaks to capture as everything is a curve.

In any event, I put a piece of angle across the bed with a blue paper towel protecting the bed, and it looks like the break starts at 12 5/16" down, and it is complete by 12 9/16", as sorta shown below.



And, as it turns out there is a bump in the bed to accomodate the filler hose, as shown below.  It measures roughly 11" long by 5 1/2" high and it sticks out ~2 1/2".

Gary, that's perfect!
Very interesting on the bump.
I was afraid of that and it now adds a new session of head scratching.

After thinking about the "bulge" some more, is it possible that there are 3 different beds for each wheel base?

Fore tank/ aft tank/ dual tank?

Seems contrary to Ford being cost effective in my mind.

No, there weren't different beds for with or without the rear tank.  From our page at Documentation/Exterior/BEDS, TAILGATES, & COMPONENTS:

I see that and raise you this;

per DOCUMENTATION/ Fuel Systems/ Fuel System Part #s/ Fuel Tanks

85/86 F150/350 - - 117" & 139" W/B E5TZ 9002-M  16.5 gal (midship)

and

85/86 F150/350 - - 117", 133", 138", 155", 168" W.B. E5tz 9002-E 19 gal (aft axle) steel

*** sorry, I couldn't figure out how to copy/paste the image of the page quickly ***

So my 85 F150 SWB was available w/ either a midship or an aft axle or (presumably) both;
However, "Dad's Truck" has an aft tank and a bulge and there is no bulge behind the wheel hump to allow a factory aft tank in my bed.

I'm confused?

I guess I won't know how much of an issue this is until I go ahead and try it and see if there are any clearance issues.

I don't understand all of the data.  But, I will say that I think you'll have trouble installing a aft-axle fuel filler plastic housing in a bed that doesn't have that bulge.  Here's what it looks like on Big Blue, and that bulge is needed to get that plastic housing in there.

Oh yes, I forgot to say that to post a pic from one of the documentation pages you can do it one of two ways:

Screenshot: This will get you the whole of the page and you can do it via the Windows Print Screen function or the Snipping tool.  Save the file and then insert and upload it.

Piece-by piece: Most documentation pages are made up of snips of the relevant info from the Master Parts Catalog.  And since that info isn't always contiguous I take several snips to just get the Bullnose stuff and not the little Ranger, Bronco II, or Aerostar.  So if you want one or more of those, right-click the pic, copy the address, and paste that into the "Or copy an image from the Internet:" line in the Insert Image popup.  But make sure you delete the "http://" that is already there as your picture's url already has that.

Hopefully this worked



I'd like to ask John if he has a bulge also. From his photos it appears that he does.

I guess the "bulge" quandary will get solved in due time. In the mean time, I did some layout of possible cut lines. Using Gary's dims and feeling around to determine the size of the plastic container behind the exterior sheet metal I made some templates of what I thought that I would have to remove and relocate.

I then transferred that to the area behind the wheel well, again using Gary's dims.

The area that I had chosen for the removal phase took into consideration the contours of the wheel arch itself, being careful to stay clear of the area in the bottom right corner. As you can see, the area to the left of the door, that seems to be necessary to clear the plastic behind it, now protrudes severely into the contours of the wheel arch at the bottom left corner.



Unacceptable!

So now I have two paths to take;

A - Wait for someone that has a true SWB Dual tank truck to chime in. Similar to this,


or B - Just take my bed off of the frame and start looking around from better angles.

I'm going to have to take my bed off eventually, but I'm the kind of guy that likes to have a pretty good understanding of what is ahead of me before i dive in so I'll probably wait a bit and see if someone jumps on board with answers.

Thanks to everyone's help so far!!!  

Tarheel Blue wrote

I'd like to ask John if he has a bulge also. From his photos it appears that he does.

Would you believe, after 35 years, have to say I don't remember the bulge, but yes, there is one there. Not much, but enough that, if there isn't one, installing the fill tube can't be done. Or, maybe, time to talk about options?

You have your surprises and I've got mine (just discovered), so off to write about "it's time to rethink this project".

Funny I dont remember that bulge when I was cutting up the style side parts bed for the floor

I just checked my pictures and what you know a bulge!
If I knew you needed that I would have cut it in a way that it could be saved and used but did not know of it sorry

I cant remember if I saved the bed side with the door or just the door, the "box" and filler pipe?
Next time out in the garage when not to hot I will dig through my left over parts to see what I have.
I am sure I have the door, I cant remember what box I have if style side or flare side at this point but I will try and dig out what I have and let you know.

Oh I can tell you the style side & flare side doors are different in size and shape.
Going through my pictures I may not have the sheet metal bed side  but should have the other parts.
I also seen the mounting hole spacing for the door and box are different for the 2 different bed sides.
Dave ----

I thought that I should update this thread before I start another one because there are some things that I've discovered over the last few days. The original reason for my questions was to better understand what will be involved in my desire to eliminate my mid ship tank and install a 33gal Bronco tank behind the axle. I will also be converting from the YFA to a Sniper EFI (more like a TBI?).

I guess I'll start with a caution to investigate further before totally buying into the common comment of "all F Series frames are the same from '8X-'9X"

My situation might be the only anomaly to that catch all phase but it's what I have found with my truck.
I have an '85 F150 XLT SWB born in 12/84

I have since discovered that I do indeed have a slight bulge behind the wheel well that seems to be consistent with other trucks that have an aft tank, so I'm good to go there.

Next, most every picture that I could find of the back end of Bullnose trucks with the bed removed showed two cross members behind the axle. whether a tank was installed or not, they all seemed to have those two cross members.




Parts diagrams that I found showed two cross members.


Also note that a couple of the images are from Broncos. In those, you'll notice that the top of the frame rails in the area of my concern are flat whereas the F frames have a couple of sections where the frame was bent up on the top rail. I'm guessing for added strength?

So I go ahead and purchase some parts for my install from Rock Auto and Jeff's Bronco Graveyard,
THEN I crawl under the truck to start the loosening process on my bed bolts only to find that . . . .

I don't have those cross members!!



Those with a good eye will also notice that tho I do have a cross member at the very end of my frame rails, it is not only upside down but rotated 180 deg compared to the "standard" F/ Bronc frame.

I guess I gotta do some head scratching (beers)

After some searching around on Craigslist, Reaching out to my local FTE chapter members, etc.
 I remembered a fellow not too far from home that is absolutely possessed with F Series trucks;
 Keith Sink @ F-Trucks in Denton, NC has perhaps hundreds of Bullnose and Bricknose trucks. Lond story short, I should be picking up my cross members in a day or so.

My next step is to address the other common concern of the Hanger/Pump/Sender of a '95 Bronco and it's compatibility with my gauge in the dash.
I will start a new thread for that and will title it "  '95 sender for your '85 gauge  "