What are the proper procedures if a guy needed to fill and transport a 55 gallon drum of e85 to a racetrack? He'd be starting with an empty drum and a pickup truck.
What are the proper procedures if a guy needed to fill and transport a 55 gallon drum of e85 to a racetrack? He'd be starting with an empty drum and a pickup truck.
Ive considered one of those contractor fuel tanks that fit in the same place as a pickup truck toolbox. The trick is finding one for gasoline because I think there different safety requirements.
Thanks so far. Just for discussion, let's ignore the legal concerns and talk about safety concerns. One would have to fill the drum while it's in the truck bed, because lifting it into the bed after it's full would be virtually impossible. I see plenty of fuel drums in the bed of trucks at any given chump race. Are there precautions to take while filling the drum?
Make sure that the truck doesn't have a bedliner. The flow of fuel creates static electricity and the bedliner doesn't allow it to discharge. The result can be BOOM!!!
My concern is a crash. 6-7 lbs per gallon by 55 gallons...
If it is sitting in the bed, it will need to be grounded. Bedliner doesn't make any difference. If you look at how tanker trucks are filled, you will see that they attach a ground cable from the fueling rig. Also, make sure it is very secure in the bed when transporting. If it got loose, it could be very interesting.
You will have to find a gas station that either doesn't know, or doesn't enforce the rules. Then you will have to a oid any highway patrol people doing their job properly.
Other than that, shouldn't be a problem.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/johndow-industries-15-gallon-fuel-station-jdi-fst15
If you dont really need the full 55gallons...
Heres the page on TSC, they have a few bigger options, but they are more expensive.
They do have a number of them that are gasoline rated that even carry 100gallons.
In addition to the issues of weight, flammability, and grounding, it’s also a liquid load.
Liquid loads are hard to handle. They continually shift, and it is generally a shift after a turn or braking is executed.
Its like having a 400 lb weight hanging on a pendulum while you maneuver traffic. A minor evasive move can lead to a very difficult vehicle to control quite quickly.
Plus, it’s loaded very high in the vehicle.
How are you going to UNLOAD it?
If it’s a 55 gal drum, you will need a explosion proof pump that can pump out of the drum bung.
That would include a pickup tube, grounding, and proper venting.
The best way to do this is with multiple 5 gal safety cans. It’s also legal.
SVreX said:In addition to the issues of weight, flammability, and grounding, it’s also a liquid load.
Liquid loads are hard to handle. They continually shift, and it is generally a shift after a turn or braking is executed.
Its like having a 400 lb weight hanging on a pendulum while you maneuver traffic. A minor evasive move can lead to a very difficult vehicle to control quite quickly.
Plus, it’s loaded very high in the vehicle.
This issue only applies to a tank that is partially full. A full drum will not have any shift because it is full.
We use to take two 55gal drums full of fuel to our endurance races. We never had any issues with transporting it. We strapped the drums against the front of the truck bed. We may have stacked tires around them and partially tarped the barrels to provide protection. This protection also may have obscured then from view.
As for offloading we used the shaker siphon things with 5/8 ID clear tubing. We would transfer the fuel from the drums in the truck to standard plastic dump cans that were on the ground. After each pit stop the first thing we did was refill the dump cans as needed. We would have 4 or 5 dump cans ready to go at all times. The drums never came off the truck.
This is the siphon thing we used just with a longer hose.
In reply to dean1484 :
The sloshing effect only applies to partially full tanks. But the weight distribution still applies.
I figured it was reasonable to assume the drums would sometimes not be completely full.
(And yes, siphoning is a reasonable approach)
In reply to dean1484 :
What was your procedure for filling the drums?
Just go to a tractor store and buy a bunch of legal fuel jugs?
dean1484 said:SVreX said:In addition to the issues of weight, flammability, and grounding, it’s also a liquid load.
Liquid loads are hard to handle. They continually shift, and it is generally a shift after a turn or braking is executed.
Its like having a 400 lb weight hanging on a pendulum while you maneuver traffic. A minor evasive move can lead to a very difficult vehicle to control quite quickly.
Plus, it’s loaded very high in the vehicle.
This issue only applies to a tank that is partially full. A full drum will not have any shift because it is full.
We use to take two 55gal drums full of fuel to our endurance races. We never had any issues with transporting it. We strapped the drums against the front of the truck bed. We may have stacked tires around them and partially tarped the barrels to provide protection. This protection also may have obscured then from view.
As for offloading we used the shaker siphon things with 5/8 ID clear tubing. We would transfer the fuel from the drums in the truck to standard plastic dump cans that were on the ground. After each pit stop the first thing we did was refill the dump cans as needed. We would have 4 or 5 dump cans ready to go at all times. The drums never came off the truck.
Back when I was hauling vintage sportscars to various races all over the country that's exactly the approach I used. Because I had 13-1 compression only very high octane race gas kept the engine alive. In transport I'd Strap the full drums to the front of the trailer or truck, But I used a two wheeler to move the drums around and then had a spigot hooked to a hose that I'd just tip the drum down and empty as much as I needed. The Jaguar used a 44 gallon fuel cell while the DeMar has only 22 gallons Using that approach I could quickly fill the tank with the drum still up in the truck or trailer and never spilled a drop.
With the 5 gallon limit in LeMons Or Champ car using a shaker hose or hand pump makes better sense.
Patrick said:Just go to a tractor store and buy a bunch of legal fuel jugs?
I tried too. 
Lof8 - Andy said:In reply to dean1484 :
What was your procedure for filling the drums?
Go to a self serve gas station and just do it. If anyone asked it was for farm equipment.
At the time we were running Sunoco 95 or 100 octane depending on what motor I had in the car. The shorter races we ran a higher compression motor on the 100 versus the 24 hour races we would typically run a lower compression motor on 95.
In reply to dean1484 :
I'm talking grounding straps or anything else?
full disclosure, I've already done this 5 or 6 different times for champ car races. But I'm trying to see if anybody has methods for improving the process. It's not something I enjoy doing and I'm considering retiring from the "fuel drum guy" position on my team.
Nope. Ground the barrel to the nozzle before opening the drum. Keep the nozzal in contact with the barrel while filling.
I never really thought about it. I was always more worried about opening an empty drum with all the vapors than handling a full drum or filling a drum.
I worried the most when we were trying to get that last 5 or 10 gallons out of the barrel. This is when I thought it was most dangerous as you are pulling out fuel and adding air to the vapors. When you are filling a drum you are adding fuel and pushing air/vapors out so in my mind you would not get the air/vapor ratio to get an explosion. The air fuel vapors ratio would be to rich. Probably flawed logic for sure but it made me feel safer.
We did this for about 10 years and never had any issues.
dean1484 said:
We did this for about 10 years and never had any issues.
Everybody says that until they have their first issue.
dean1484 said:Nope. Ground the barrel to the nozzle before opening the drum. Keep the nozzal in contact with the barrel while filling.
I never really thought about it. I was always more worried about opening an empty drum with all the vapors than handling a full drum or filling a drum.
I worried the most when we were trying to get that last 5 or 10 gallons out of the barrel. This is when I thought it was most dangerous as you are pulling out fuel and adding air to the vapors. When you are filling a drum you are adding fuel and pushing air/vapors out so in my mind you would not get the air/vapor ratio to get an explosion. The air fuel vapors ratio would be to rich. Probably flawed logic for sure but it made me feel safer.
We did this for about 10 years and never had any issues.
I had a plate of steel I set on the ground with a long ground strap I clamped to the drum when filling.
When I was filling the race car I had a long jumper cable between the drum and the race car.
I know it was overkill but I was a Navy Firefighting instructor. We didn't mess around with fuel on a carrier.
Enclosed trailer and a drum dolley. In the back of a truck seems nutty.
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