Thread: 87 Ram 50 Engine Swap

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It was one of those weeks. Monday I got around to putting gas in the tank I added when I built the 87……. and promptly draining it back out because of a pin hole I hadn’t seen.

After doing some shopping, I found a new reproduction 58 Chevy tank. The good news was it was $93 and free shipping. The not so good was that it’s only 16 gallons instead of 20 gallons like the original tank was.


Physically the tank itself is identical to the original. The loss of 4 gallon capacity appears to come from the filler neck being placed slightly lower on the new tank. I’ve run into this before on 5th Gen El Camino gas tanks, the factory offered both 16 and 20 gallon tanks…….the tanks were the same but the filler necks were located differently. Although I’m not real sure if it was by design or not the lower capacity does allow for more fuel expansion, which is definitely something that happens with ethanol fuel.







Anyway getting the new tank in was a pretty simple deal; I had to add the return fitting to the new tank, and then redo the opening where the fill neck is behind the license plate. So I’m down to 30 gallons of fuel……..14 in the original tank (which actually holds a gallon more than it listed at) and 16 in the add on tank.

I’ve haven’t checked fuel mileage yet…….I’ve been having way too much fun doing things that are not conducive to good gas mileage or tire life. It should still get me a fair distance down the road.


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