Bent fuel tank?

[craiglud]

Yes I have been struggling with mine for some time and finally decided to do something about it. It took about two hours and was much easier than I thought it would be.

Here's what I did and what you will need.

1. Run your Rover just about empty on fuel. Carry some extra fuel onboard, in case like me, your fuel gauge is no longer accurate because of the new shape . Alternately, you could drain the fuel, I didn't want to mess with this.
2. You will need a hydraulic jack, I have one that works off my air compressor that made the work really quick.
3. Some pieces of wood to help with the bending.

The plastic fuel tank is held in place by the metal tray that you see at the bottom. The goal is to get this off the rover without the plastic fuel cell falling out!
There are 6 bolts that hold the pan in place. About 2 bolts and 2 nuts that hold the heat shield and 2 bolts that are on the top front edge of the fuel tank holding the top plastic shield in place. You will see them poking down from the top.

First remove the heat shield and set aside. You already removed the fuel, right .

Second is to remove the bolts that are inserted from the top front edge and front side of the fuel tank. You will see the threaded piece poking through the nut on the tray. They are small and I used a 1/4 drive socket to remove these from the top.

Third is to remove the bolts holding the cover. Look around the side of the tank and remove any hoses from the clips around the tank. Next remove all the bolts. I left the bolt in at the back so you can lower the tray and brace the fuel tank with a jack or something similar. It's not too heavy just awkward to maneuver because of the size. Once the tank is braced just remove the cover. Actually on mine the cover pretty much fell off and the tank stayed in place.

My cover looked like this.
Attachment 27606

I then used the hydraulic jack and the frame of the rover to mold it back to shape. Put the jack on top of the tray then extend the jack against the frame of the rover to push back the bent areas. I used a small piece of 2x4 to aid in bending some parts. When I had it close I cleaned it and sprayed the inside with some rust primer.
Attachment 27607
Attachment 27609
Attachment 27608

To install the tricky part is getting the cover under the tank. I held the tank up while I slid the cover under. I then attached the rear screw. With that in place I then lifted the front and moved the support under the metal tray. At this point the plastic tank needed some coaxing to get it back in the tray. What worked best was using a rubber mallet on the bottom of the metal tray and the tank eventually fell in. I then replaced all the bolts for the tray. The two bolts on top then the heat shield.

Im assuming the plastic tank will reform close to the original shape over time with the weight of the fuel.

Now I'm just waiting on my fuel tank skid plate from tactical rovers!

[mack73]

Great work. Let us know how the fuel tank skid plate install goes.

[nwoods]

Boy does this look familiar. I've made similar repairs to my trail modified tank skid all too often :-)

That Tactical Rovers tank skid looks like a good investment. It's actually cheaper than the flimsy OEM shield

[puneetbhalla]

Nice work there Craig. If you need another set of hands next time for work on the LR, call me.

[jz-is-fishing]

Cheers you have made it seem easy, I thought it would be far more daunting.

[samnt650]

I have the same "dent" problem with my plate and interested to hear your Tactical Rover Fuel Tank Plate installation. My dealer quoted me $225 for a new fuel tank plate. TR plate cost twice as much...

[trynian]

The TR plate does not replace the existing one. It goes over it to prevent getting a dent in the forst place. If you already have a dent you still need to fix that.

[craiglud]

Its been working great so far! I would also say that now that I had the 'tray' off the rover, that is all it is. It is just to hold the fuel tank in place not really to provide protection. Granted its better than an exposed plastic cell however it does not provide the protection I thought.

@samnt650 I tried to locate a new plate through a junkyard that I was going to see about have custom reinforcement done then replace the old tray with the new 'enhanced' one. The benefit should be that you only need one piece and it will not hang down an extra inch once installed like all the fuel tank skids do. In the end I will end up just adding the TacticalRover plate

[craiglud]

let's put a set of fuel tank skid plates on