External fuel tank
To heat the cabin and also the domestic hot water we are using three heat sources; gas, diesel and electric. We also need to build in redundancy and have to assume that at some part of our journey gas will not be freely available.
So we have decided to fit a diesel fired blown air heating system to heat the cabin. It will also heat domestic hot water via a 10 litre boiler and has the option of using a 240 volt immersion element for when power is available by either land line or generator. We will also fit a gas operated blown air system for cabin heating and a stand alone gas instant hot water heater located in the garage operating on a balanced flue principal. There will also be a radiator with fan in the cabin to utilies the hot water system of the truck engine, this will also double as a valuable means of reducing engine temperature at those times when the engine is working hard in hot climates. I will discuse all these systems in detail in a later section but to feed the diesel systems, including the onboard generator, a seperate independant diesel tank is needed.
The ideal position for this is between the chassis rails, beneath the garage area. It has to be manufactured in such a way as not to hinder the departure angle and be protected against grounding. The total capacity will be approximatly 190 litres. Below are the plans and photographs of the finished unit prior to painting and fitting. It was made from 4 mm thick aluminium plate
The sender is supplied by
WEMA UK complete with the gauge. Sender model S3 was made to length by WEMA prior to shipping, the gauge we used was the IPFR. Total cost was around £72.00 with postage
