A peek at the pipework – Update # 2

Further work has been done on the rotisserie this week, and although the stand is not completely finished, Steve has turned the tank on its side as a trial. We finally have a clear view of the pipework running under the tank body.

I have already touched on how lucky we are that the tanker is complete. But seeing the pipework underneath just cements our appreciation of how original this tanker truck really is. The pipework, and in fact the entire tank body, could so easily have been scrapped. But for whatever reason, the truck was left alone in its entirety and we are so glad that it was. It means that all of the historic detail of the iconic Texaco streamliner has been preserved in this fabulous Diamond T tanker.

This is the outlet valve on the underside of the fuel tank closest to the cab end. The valve is the furthest away from the fuel dispensing unit and therefore has no other pipework mounted near it. The pipe running off to the left goes directly to the dispensing unit and below this is the cable that opens and shuts the valve to control the flow of fuel.

The outlet valve for the next tank is positioned so that the pipe and the cable from the valve behind it has a clear path back to the control units. This is repeated on each valve so that the end result is a neatly arranged group of staggered pipes and cables.

At the back of the tank body, the four pipes are all bent at a ninety degree angle to change direction towards the right rear compartment. They travel through the compartment wall and connect to the dispensing unit.  The cables from each outlet valve can be seen extending through the panel at the top of the image where they connect to the valve control unit. The chain that was dragged below the tanker to ground it and discharge any static electricity is still attached.

A view of the right rear compartment that houses the fuel dispensing equipment. The unit on the left has the four fuel tank pipes entering it from behind. The box on the right controls the cables from each of the four outlet valves.

The tanker driver would connect a hose to the front outlet of the unit and then dispense the fuel directly into the service station storage tanks.

The four knobs at the front of the control unit would be used to open and close each outlet valve. The corresponding cables can be seen going through the panel behind the unit where they continue back to each fuel tank.

The combined four tank capacity was 1005 gallons so each fuel compartment held approximately 250 gallons.

Turning the tank on its side also provides a better view of the fuel compartment hatches across the top of the tank body. There are three in a row, each with double doors made of heavy diamond plate. The fourth compartment sits underneath where the streamlined shape of the body starts. Unable to mould double doors into the slope of the roof, Heil have incorporated a plain fourth hatch door that blends into the stylish bodywork coming down towards the trunk.

Steve is about to start stripping the tank body in readiness for getting it back to bare metal. Then the repairs can start …