The Blog of Wildstar, aka Jimpossible

Saving my Lawn Tractor with a Juryrigged Gascan

wildstar84
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This spring I oiled up my 16 year old riding tractor mower, started it up and mowed my back pasture as I do every spring when the grass quickly starts to grow to knee-high in a span of about two weeks during the rainy season.  After getting everything mowed for the first of usually about three and a half times a season, I put the mower back into the barn and closed the door.  The next day I went out into the barn for something and noticed that the place smelled like the inside of a gas can.  I opened the doors and turned on the fan and started looking at the mower.  Sure enough, the sixteen year old plastic gas can had developed cracks around the opening and cap at the top.  I called my friendly local tractor-repair man to inquire about a new gas can for it.  He laughed and said that I would need to get a new mower as the gas cans in these models are embedded deep in the frame of the tractor, difficult to obtain (aftermarket), and would require $$$ of laaaabor to completely dissemble the tractor to get at and replace; and that, “Oh by the way, I have a great little used tractor that I can offer you a great deal on!”  Me:  Ooooee-kaaye, thanks, I’ll get back withya¡” (NOT! – I went and looked at it and it wasn’t big enough for my pasture).  I started googling and consulting with a general mechanic friend of mine about repairing the tank and for a second opinion.  I settled on some silicone-epoxy-based stuff and tried it.  It was messy, but seemed to work for the most part.  After draining and evaporating out all the remaining gas and doing all this, and adding some gas into the tank in preparation to resume mowing, I noticed the next morning that I was STILL smelling gas.  So, I got a flashlight and started examining as much of the rest of the tank as I could see through the holes and sides of all the sheets of metal surrounding it and, sure enough found at least one other leak that would be impossible to reach and repair.

RotopaX RX-1G Gas Can;  by (©) RotopaX(tm).Ok, now what? I decided to sleep on it for awhile and then came up with the bright idea of seeing if I could make some kind of “auxiliary” tank for it that I could mount on the back.  So I decided to measure the back area and try to google and find a tank that would fit properly within the limited dimensions.  Google presented dozens of gas tanks in all different shapes and sizes, but I only found one that was even close to what I was envisioning:  A one-gallon mountable “ATV” tank from “RotopaX” via Amazon (link here).  A bit small, but it’d do.  the next size up was a 1.75 gallon version that would not fit.

Next step was to find a way to connect it to the tractor’s fuel line, along with a “straw” to reach the bottom of the tank to pull the gas.  I googled around some more for connectors.  This involved wading through dozens if not hundreds of different little doodad fittings.  Finally, I stumbled across something that might actually work:  a “Brass Hose Barb Bulkhead Union“.  This unique little fitting has just what I was looking for:  a screw-down bolt/nut to tightly affix to and seal with the wall of the gas tank, and two push-on fittings:  one to attach to the tractor’s fuel line and one to attach the internal extension, aka. “straw” part to reach the bottom of the tank!  I tried finding this part at the hardware stores, but no luck.  So, having planned out exactly how everything was going to work, I ordered both parts on Amazon.  The tank arrived literally the NEXT day!  Kudos to “Advanced Cycle Parts” for their lightning-FAST shipping!  The brass fitting, unbeknownst to me at the time of ordering, had to be shipped on a “Slow boat from China” and took over a MONTH to arrive at my doorstep.  Whilst waiting, I took the gas can and held it against the back of the tractor and contemplated possible ways to attach it and exactly how it should go on.  Connecting the tractor’s fuel line would be straight forward – it was just behind the back of the tractor connecting to the old gas can, removing it from the old can and turning it around to bend over the back meant it just perfectly reached over where it could connect to the top of the new can, provided I put the hole and the new brass fitting in just the right spot. 
Fortunately for me, we’ve been “blessed” this Summer with an extreme drought (literally no measurable rain in the month of June).  While all my Church brethren have been praying for rain every Sunday this Summer, I’ve been silently thanking the Lord for the drought as I had no way to mow the grass, which would quickly grow two feet within days of the next soaking rain!  When the brass fitting finally landed in my mailbox, I took it down to the auto parts store down the street and obtained a free foot-or-so long piece of matching rubber fuel line left over that was too short for them to sell, I guess, and quickly measured and drilled the requisite hole in the tank near the main opening and then realized another minor difficulty.  That was how to attach the aforementioned piece of hose internally and then attach the brass fitting onto the tank.  Both of these steps are easy-peasy themselves.  The “hard” part is that one must either attach the fitting first, then attach the hose inside where it’s difficult (impossible it turns out) to reach and get enough force on it to push it onto the fitting; or:  attach the hose first, then get it through the hole from underneath and hold it tight enough to twist down the nut properly (difficult, but doable, it turned out).  I ended up going he latter way, allowing me to also install a small hose-clamp over it, but first I had to run a long piece of tiny but reasonably rigid wire through the hose and make a small hook at the base, place that into the tank, then get the top end of the wire through the hole from inside to pull the bolt up through the hole and attach the nut to it.  Then I got my wife to firmly hold down the tank to the table while, with both hands twisting the nut on with pliers while straining to keep the bolt pulled through and perpendicular to the surface of the tank, which was unexpectedly difficult.  Once properly secure with a small O-ring washer under the nut, I pushed the wire with the hook on the bottom down and back up to remove it from the hose, closed up the tank and tried to blow into the brass end now protruding from the top to ensure it was air-tight, and it was ready to go!  Tools needed for all this: 2 small screw-on hose-clamps, one small rubber O-ring washer (to fit over the threaded part of the fitting), electric drill, pliers, flat-blade screwdriver, metal file, needle-nosed pliers, and box-blade (to cut rubber fuel-line “straw” to proper length).

“My New Jury-rigged replacement Gas Can”, by (© 2018) me.  (Click for larger image)The one thing I had not thoroughly thought thru was exactly how to mount the tank to the tractor.  RotopaX sells some really nice metal brackets with twist-on handles just for this purpose, but they are expen$ive and must be bolted on, which I found was going to be a steep mountain to climb as 1) the metal plate on the back of the tractor between the original gas tank and the outside world was very heavy gauge, nearly 3/32″ thick steal, thicker I believe than some car bumpers these days.  2) there was no way to get behind it to attach any bolts!  Therefore, I was reduced to having to find a way to “strap” it on.  My thoughts had been using some sort of combination of bungee-cords, since there were numerous holes, brackets, gaps, etc. around the sides of the tractor body to attach them to, if I could find cords with the right lengths, which ended up not being difficult to do at all, at my local Wal-Mart!  So I obtained a “kit” composed of several cords of slightly-varying lengths and was able to quickly get it strapped on where it wouldn’t slide around in any direction or be jarred off.  I then, using another small hose clamp, attached the tractor’s fuel line to the protruding brass nipple I had created and filled her up with gas, sealed the lid and left it!  I sniffed around for fumes, closed the barn and left.  I came back next day and could not smell any fumes – SUCCESS!

The final step was to actually try it out.  I aired up the tires, charged the battery, and then opened up the cap slightly to allow air to come in but not enough to slosh out any gas.  This is easy to control because these new-fangled environmentally-correct eco-friendly gas cans have caps that lock into place and have gear-like teeth such that you can loosen it slightly and the teeth hold it exactly how much you loosened it and no more!  I expected the mower to require a lot of cranking in order to draw gas up into the now long-empty fuel line, but it fired right up almost as soon as I began cranking and ran perfectly!  I backed it out, got off, checked for leaks, drove out to the pasture and mowed one time around.  I then checked the bungee cords and made sure it was holding steady and snug, and again checked for any leaking or spilling gas – NONE!  I continued mowing without issue.  Now, I knew that this gas can was small (1 gal) and, due to the way it was mounted (horizontally), and with the intake diagonally on the corner, it would only hold about 3/4 gallon of fuel, so I knew I would have to gas up more frequently, but, after barely ten minutes (so it seemed) of mowing, I suddenly ran out of gas!  Sure enough, that was the case (no other problems), so I refilled and resumed.  NOTE:  Refilling is a bit tricky getting up under the back of the tractor-body to get to the opening, and being able to see when it’s almost full without overflowing it.  Fortunately for me, I have an old-style non eco-friendly gas can with a long, flexible snout that I can reach it with!  I managed to finish what little mowing that was needed and park it back in the barn before it ran out again though, as it STILL has NOT rained since this saga began in June, and it is now early August.  So, now I too, am praying for RAIN!
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