Water Tank

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Water Tank

Postby rick13 on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:49 +0000

Hi,

I am thinking of fitting a Stainless Steel water tank under the tray somewhere.
Anyone have any experience in fitting a water tank??
Plastic or Stainless sugestions??
Where to get one, I have been looking at the Caravan and RV sites. Not many SS ones around.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby davis.16 on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:06 +0000

plastic would be lighter and cheaper i would imagine. i was looking at an aux fuel tank around $600 that goes between spare tyre and the under side of the tray and gets plummed into the stock fuel tank. im sure you could install it and not plum it to the fuel tank and use it as a water tank. just a thought.

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Re: Water Tank

Postby rodw on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 6:27 +0000

You are lucky with the tray back, there are a few options. Try Ovesco, Dolium from Opposite Lock or check out the range from Camec. My mate has finally made up my stainless one and we will fit it Friday afternoon. (Well he finished t a couple of weeks ago but I was a cripple then). He is going to use nutserts (nuts that crimp in like a pop rivet) and it'll be bolted to the tray with 8 or so bolts and sit on some rubber sheeting. I will post pics on my build up. Bought the plumbing stuff today. Been a long time coming. I have a shower and pressure pump on board and wil be able to select water supply between an external source and the tank.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby TLux on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 2:39 +0000

I'm selling the stainless tank I had made up, it's 55ltr and measures 500 x 300 x 355 high. It would fit under the tray in front or behind the rear wheel. It has two threaded holes in it. One at the top for a breather/ filler and one at the bottom for a tap. The holes are on the 500 long side in the centre. It cost me $535 and is really well made. Make an offer if you are interested.

Trent.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rick13 on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 9:02 +0000

Thanks Guys,

I have been looking at Camec and OL tanks, seem to be a lot of plastic and not many SS tanks around these days.
Rodw, will be keepinmg a keen eye on your thread.

Trent, from memory you had yours mounted in your tray??
I have a good look underneath and make some more measurements on the weekend.
Any chance you could send me a pic??
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rodw on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 5:04 +0000

One (expensive) SS under tray option is the OL Aux fuel tank that fits above the spare tre, The Spare drops about 65 mm. I think it is 70 litres. Thought about it, but it's about $1k. Looking forward to this arvo to get mine in.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rick13 on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 6:57 +0000

That is expensive...... As I would really like 125 Litres....
Will be watching your thread for details.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rodw on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 8:20 +0000

rick13 wrote:That is expensive...... As I would really like 125 Litres....
Will be watching your thread for details.


Well, it's in,
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Re: Water Tank

Postby Hilux Max on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 7:41 +0000

Rod, heres a question some of us would be interested in......

How do you keep the water tank clean internally and the water always fresh when using it?

You know when water sits for a while, especially if warm you may get backteria and crap building up in the tank.....

will you just be flushing it with hot water or is there a sterilising agent to be used before each camping trip?

I like the look of this one's below (c/o Opposite Lock)....hope it fits behind the rear seats.....
1090 wide x 670 high x 70 deep - 40 litres.
Image

or heres one similar to Rods design, but plastic- 1350 wide x 600 high x 80 deep, 50litres.
Image

And a stainless steel tray mounted one like Rods-
Image

Did you consider one off the shelf or you always wanted a custom steel one?
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rodw on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 7:59 +0000

geez, I hate it when things move when writing a reply, no matter, caught it in time.

Max, I looked at all of the commercial options and felt that they were all quite a compromise for the master plan I have which is to include a drawer unit and some sort of mobile kitchen fit out. Any of the commercial tanks were either too expensive in terms of the footprint under the drawers or required the drawers to sit higher than I wanted. The last pic of the black tank is basically a thinner version of mine. My target capacity was to be about 70-80 litres. I've pretty much decided I will use a 187 kg 1219mm drawer slide from Ovesco when I do the drawers and my initial idea of a thinner tank then resulted in wasted space behind the drawers. So I went with a 380mm wide tank so there is no wasted space behind the drawer slides.

I am not really concerned with tainted water as the stainless tank will take care of that. I think most of that comes from the cheaper plastic tanks. Good tanks (eg. expensive tanks either S/S or made the same way rain water tanks are these days ) don't have the problem. This is why people try to flush them out or condition them somehow, even fill them with cordial!.

The other thing is to fill the tank with drinking water hose to prevent the plastic taste getting in as you fill the tank. As far as maintenance goes, I don't think there will be any problems nor will I need any maintenance other than an occasional flush. Most of the time it will be clorinated water going in there, bore water out west can get a slime build up if light can get in (but that is not an issue with my tank). However, bore water is considered sterile if not exposed to the air (true, some hospitals use it straight out of the tap for babies formula etc.) so that won't be a problem with bacteria. I have heard of creek water causing problems with tanks, mainly causing bad taste due to bacteria build up that is hard to get out.

In my experience, I think rain water would be ok as well, sometimes it will go stale if stored for a while but it won't kill you.

I might add, I am not a fussy guy when it comes to the taste of water. I grew up on muddy dam water, graduated to bore water, lived in plenty of towns around Qld (some of which are bore water only, some use bore water in parts.) My old man reckoned you knew you were thirsty if you drank water out of a cow pad out in the paddock and I have done that and survived.

I think the good thing about my install is that if I had to use a source of water I did not really want to put in my tank, I could flip my pump over to the external inlet and save my good water.

Most of my mates empty their tanks when they pack up from a weekend camp to get the weight down for the return trip.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rodw on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 8:06 +0000

I thought it might be worth copying som estuff about 2 way valves over to this thread.

I wanted to be able to select between using an external water source and the water tank. To do this, you can get a two way valve (often called an L port valve). Just sticking in an L port valve is not enough as you could contaminate your drinking water so you need to use some check valves. They only let water flow one way so there is no chance of any cross contamination when you switch the valve over. So here is a smaller version of what the council wanted when they connnected town water to a house I owned once which was just on rain water:

Image

Believe it or not, you are looking at about $90 worth of fittings. The shiny round fittings are the check valves.

The two tails pointing to the right are the inlets. One for the tank and one for the existing shower inlet I already had. The other goes to the tank. The tail pointing to the bottom ofthe pic is the outlet that goes to my pressure pump. So where to fit it? There looked like to be a good place just under the right hand side headight that would be easy for me to reach the valve. I used a couple of copper saddles to hold the fittings on. I have found the box of self-drilling galvanised roofing screws I had left over from building my shed to be great for mounting this sort of stuff.

Image

It really would have been better if I had bought another brass elbow for the bottom tail so it also pointed to the right as well. No matter, I just used a low density poly irrigation elbow:

Image

Some people reckon plastic fittings are the way to go on a vehicle as they are nice and light and thus stand up to vibrations well.

The white hose is certified drinking water hose so there should be no taints in the water. Be sure to make up (or buy) a drinking water hose to fill your tank with so the water does mot get a plasticy taste as you fill it which can occure if you just use ordinary garden hose.

Skog raised some issues about using galvanised screws and copper saddles I used here being a metal fire risk. Hopefully he will chime in and explain this more fully as his comments were not clear to me.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby Hilux Max on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:06 +0000

Thanks Rod, very helpful as always ;)
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rodw on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:31 +0000

Skog posted a reply about the gal screws and copper saddles on my build up and it is worth recording here:

Skog07 wrote:Maybe a little exageration on my part there Rod with a "metal fire"
Sometimes Gal screws and copper can set up a premature rusting effect into the object that it is screwed into. You may find after a long period of time that the actual material that the gal screw threads into actually rusts away. If you were to use the Gal screws I would remove them one by one and coat them in grease and screw each on back in. This would seal the metal and insulate it against this effect. The grease will also prevent oxidiation "rust" due to the paint protection of the body being removed where it it screwed in.
Self drilling screws do leave traces of swarf around as well an this can promote rust as well. Best to try and remove it all with a magnet and a vacuum cleaner if possible.
Cheers
Skog


I think I'll follow his advice and also replace the copper saddles with nickel plated ones..
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Re: Water Tank

Postby Brookster on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 9:29 +0000

Rod,
The other option to grease is silicone. Stainless steel fittings on aluminium masts etc.. on boats are often coated with silicone to form a sort of gasket and slow down electrolysis.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby Torsion on Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:05 +0000

Man stainless tanks are rediculous in price, I got a quote for a under tray (behind rear wheel) tubular to sit up high and not hang down to much, The tank would have held 30 litres - $470.00 - No Way.

Rick - I'll post up some photo's of my water tanks under my tray.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rodw on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 4:42 +0000

[quote="Torsion"]Man stainless tanks are rediculous in price, I got a quote for a under tray (behind rear wheel) tubular to sit up high and not hang down to much, The tank would have held 30 litres - $470.00 - No Way.
quote]
That's more than waht I paid for my 107 litres :D :D
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rick13 on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 5:44 +0000

Thanks Torsion, any ideas are more than welcome...
Price wise, mates rates will always rule right rodw???

Thanks for the posts guys.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby rodw on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 5:50 +0000

rick13 wrote:Thanks Torsion, any ideas are more than welcome...
Price wise, mates rates will always rule right rodw???


Absolutley. In tihs case abiout 1/2 another quote I got from a guy on Outer Limits.
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Re: Water Tank

Postby Diezel45 on Mon, 15 Jun 2020 11:27 +0000

Anyone fitted a water tank on the back wall inside the cab for a dual cab?

Thinking of taking the back seats out for trips away and fitting one there and want to see if anyone else has done it.

Will be putting a floor in the back for the fridges anyway.
All the gear, With no idea

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Re: Water Tank

Postby hiluxxury on Mon, 15 Jun 2020 11:49 +0000

I have looked at this in the past and ended up just getting the 10 litre water bottles at the supermarket. Heaps cheaper, lighter, easy to fill if you need too, easy to buy new ones and easy to put on odd spaces in the cab or tub/tray.

I have done many outback trips with this setup, its just so cheap and easy.
I might be wrong.

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