When we go to Inuvik, Yukon Territories in 2018, the distance between available gas is pretty close to the range I have in my tank. It’s 5.8 gallons and I get 40-45 mpg in average conditions for maybe 235 miles. In the mud with headwinds, who knows? The 460 mile Dempster Highway to Inuvik has some gas stations and the longest distance between them is 229 miles so I’ll carry two, one-gallon extra tanks on the lids of my aluminium side cases.
I would have mounted them on the sides of the top case, but then I couldn’t open the left side case lid without hitting the gas can. I used the handy RotoPlex cans with their twist-lock fastener. Last time I didn’t take the top case anyway so this mounting method gives me the option to leave the top case home again and just use the waterproof canoe bags again.
After fitting them up, I removed the twist-lock fastener and put bolts with plastic washers for weatherproofing in the holes.
Neater without the tanks. When I need them, I’ll just reinstall the fasteners and snap on the tanks.
To avoid maybe 9000+/- miles of the side case lids rubbing on the plastic gas tanks, I found some nifty rubber self-stick furniture bumpers at Lowes and put them on the lids where the tanks would rub.
I got concerned that the plastic hinges might break when opened since there was no lid-stop, so I dug out my plastic-covered small cable kit and made up some nifty lid-stops. Used stainless hardware for all bolts and nuts.
The last thing I did was to remove all the bolts holding the lid-stoppers and seal them back on with Plumber’s Goop to keep the box as leak-proof as possible.
Nice write up, Jim. I’ll have to add the cables to my lids too. That’s after I beat them into submission (again) from the abuse of the ‘loaded lid syndrome’.