Water Tank and SHURflo pump in GU with tap on rear door

Hi All, this was my second project over the last couple of days, so want to post it up before I go back to work tomorrow, get distracted and never get around to it. :D

I had the drawers made up and mounted them and the home made cargo barrier about 6 months back. Hopefully one day I'll post those builds as well, but for now, I'll just point out that I first found the tank. I then had the drawers built to suit the tank and built the cargo barrier over the top of it all.

Also I was fortunate that a friend was traveling to Aus last month and was able to get me the pump as I could not find anything like it here. (Doesn't mean it is not here somewhere, but I doubt it is).

The starting point yesterday was with the tank mounted in position, but no plumbing or fittings. The tank is meant to be about 40 litres.

http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Vd...33_640x480.jpg

This is the pump. I just sent my friend to the caravan shop in Ballarat to get whatever they had, as long as it had a pressure switch built in. This is what he got me:

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-D9...12_640x480.jpg http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6t...24_640x480.jpg

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-FN...13_640x480.jpg

I had that time old "debate with self" about where to mount the tap. Took a while and a few circles. Eventually I won (or did I lose?). Anyway this is what I had in mind, could it be done?

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-NH...37_640x480.jpg

Start with looking at the possibility of getting the hose to the door somehow. I took a good look on the web, but could not get any hits on putting the hose through the rear door. So, start with the basics, pull it apart and take a look. It seemed like it might fit through the same path as the electrics and the tube for the water on the rear wiper. I then decided to give it a try.

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-qY...01_480x640.jpg

To my own surprise, seemed feasible.

Really struggled to work out where I was going to put the pump. The tank had an outlet at the bottom on both sides, so that didn't matter. Was going to mount it up near the batter on the top of the drawers, but I wasn't happy with it. It actually seemed to take too much space and was much "bigger" wherever I put it compared to what I thought before I got it to the car. Also the orientation of the inlet and outlet on the pump meant I had to face it the opposite way than where I thought it naturally wanted to go.

Finally I started thinking of putting it on the other side and that I might have a chance to get the hose under the drawers from one side to the other. There was just the perfect amount of space to fit it. Sometimes things just work out. :)

The drawer is resting on the plastic cover at the back and that creates a gap in front of the plastic cover. Used a coat hanger taped to the hose and a lever or two (had to get a helper) and managed to pull the hose through. So the hose comes from the door, through the rubber piece, into the rear panel and then out through the jack well at the bottom and was fed from right to left looking at the back:

http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yE...23_640x480.jpg http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-zn...44_480x640.jpg

I mounted the pump off the side of the drawers on the left side (near the intake for the rear aircon).

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-cT...38_480x640.jpg

Had to split the post as it had too many images! Can't have too many images can you?

Love to have the pics, they're much more important than all the words, so split it in two.

One great thing about having an old car with lots of scratches is that you don't get as stressed drilling a few holes in the body panels. :)

http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Rf...06_640x480.jpg http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Ii...16_640x480.jpg

http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-eM...36_640x480.jpg http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ZV...52_640x480.jpg

Managed to get the tap on as it was getting dark and the basics connected for test run:

http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-vi...07_640x480.jpg

Had to use the jumper leads from the battery in the back to get some power to the back and a helper to turn the tap on. It had promise. :)

Had a few teething issue though! Leaks! Had to change some fittings, change some hose on the input side of the pump and use lots more teflon tape on the brass fittings. Then the real surprise was the tap on the tank end. It came with a basic tap, but unfortunately water would leak out through the top of the tap itself when turned on (but not when it was closed). Short term solution is that tap is gone. Probably since it is all connected now, that will be the long term solution:

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Ld...35_640x480.jpg http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-VG...09_640x480.jpg

On the other side I started with a concoction of a home made breather and complicated things. I cable tied it 3 times and had to cut it each time to move and fix another leak. In the end I decided it was better to have a longer hose for "manual" fallback, just hang it out the door as needed if anything is wrong with the pump. This tube also serves as the level gauge and breather. I have a small plastic hand tap somewhere, which will go on the end of it when I can find it. It now has some velcro to hold it in place.

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_f...47_480x640.jpg

This is the finished product in the daylight:

http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-YR...44_640x480.jpg

I am really happy with the pump in the few minutes of testing. It self primed with no issues. It also seems to work fine with a smaller flow (just turn the tap on a little). It mentions in the doco that it internally has some valve or something to bypass internally. Whatever it does, it seems to work really well. Once I get it wired up I'll get to test it more thoroughly, but so far it seems to work out better than I had hoped.

I will hang a short piece of hose off the tap so that I am not always filling the spare wheel with water. I wanted to sit the tap in shallow in the wheel though so it won't get knocked off easily.

Hope it gives someone else some ideas.

Hey CGM - nice work.

Did you get your tank locally and do you have a brand / part number?

That tank would nearly be perfect for my build.....

Excellent setup!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by happygtu

Hey CGM - nice work.

Did you get your tank locally and do you have a brand / part number?

That tank would nearly be perfect for my build.....

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I got it locally here in Saudi. :)

I'm just going to bed and on tapatalk now. There was another thread with pictures almost identical but maybe 50 l instead of 40. Think it was Boab tank. I'll check tomorrow if you haven't already found it.

Thx Cameron

tapatalk on galaxy note

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cgm

I'll check tomorrow if you haven't already found it.

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This was an old thread that started with a very similar water tank:

http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forum...98-Water-tanks

It has a link to this page:

http://www.dolium.com.au/view?comman...82&pkey=dolium

Towards the bottom is the "50 Litre Taper Universal Mount Water Tank". This is very similar to what I have, only it is a little taller and a little larger (50 vs 40 litres).

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Cameron.

I finished the wiring tonight and put a switch in. Without the switch on nothing comes out of the tap, so won't lose the water if someone plays with it. The tap is just mounted in a thin piece of ply so they could still break it off easily if they wanted. Hopefully not.

I'm still not quite sure of the final config at the back. I put a piece of hose down from the tap to clear the wheel, so that water doesn't always end up collecting inside the spare. Not quite happy with it as it is a bit low. Thinking about having a small basin to clip onto the wheel somehow or just some sort of cover over the wheel so the water runs down. Might even just get a standard vinyl wheel cover with a hole in the centre.

Have to think about this some more, just not quite right. Let's see what comes ...

Thanks for sharing Cameron :-)

Good Job , on my other 4x4 I had a stainless steel tank custom made to fit over the lhs wheel arch, 55ltrs all up.
Filled it from outside 4x4 from sliding rear window, Tap was on the rear bumper also had a washer bottle 12v and a TOM CAT off
the bonnet fitted to the rear as well. this was activated with a momentary on push button giving you a good squirt of water and you didnt waste
as much water, Will try and find pics or take new ones. Water flow was great even though only gravity fed

Thanks threedogs. I'd be interested in the photos if you can find any. I tried to avoid the bumper for the tap mount as I was worried one way or another I'd knock it off. Especially in the sand dunes coming off a steep dune you often drag the bum through the sand. I think partly I put the tap where it is because I got challenged by the idea of whether I could or not. :) I'm happy with it there, but realised that now my "rubbish bag" that hangs off the spare is no longer going to work! Bummer - I'll have to give it to someone else and then they can come on our trips and I'll still put my rubbish in it. ha ha.

I like the idea of the push for a small amount of water. The pump will empty the tank very quickly if you want it to. It does however cope fine with it turned on just a little (pump is designed to handle it) and the tap style works easily enough to do it just a little. Maybe a slightly bigger tank would have been better, but it is always a trade off against the weight you always carry around and space. This was a compromise size with all that and so far I'm happy enough. I didn't want to make the drawers any smaller (I always fill them with too much crap and cart it around "just incase")

Ever thought about a foot operated GO BUTTON,
leaving both hands free ??
I have heaps of ideas on this subject the tap could go on the middle rear step
under wheel for protection???

i likey this

Quote:

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Originally Posted by threedogs

Ever thought about a foot operated GO BUTTON,
leaving both hands free ??
I have heaps of ideas on this subject the tap could go on the middle rear step
under wheel for protection???

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You're on a roll, so where am I gonna mount the soap pump bottle?

tapatalk on galaxy note

I can't see these photos?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by croftr02

I can't see these photos?

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Looks like the link to the photos has been lost so nobody can see them unfortunately.

Next time my brother in law is around I'll get pics of how he did it in a GQ .

Darren has done it in his GU and he does really good write ups on things so maybe he could de-install/re-install his while taking photos. ;) @MudRunnerTD

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TPC

Darren has done it in his GU and he does really good write ups on things so maybe he could de-install/re-install his while taking photos. ;) @MudRunnerTD

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hahahahahahahahahahaaaa! Tony! You Kill me!!

But yes i have running water in my GUIV. in the back door. Sweet thing it is too.