On board Water System and Storage

JimboT

Member
I am building my first custom rig and planning on a 10 year life cycle. My rig is a RAM 3500 Cummins HO, with a Carli/King Pin Top system. I have a travel trailer that will be home base for our travels hence the big rig. Our plan is then to go out 3-7 days at a time with the truck into the back-country to tour, fish and hunt. For the next few years our travels will be western North America, but who knows after that. I just did a three week trek through Patagonia with my son, and got the international bug as well. I am an avid backpacker, but once I introduce a stock animal or vehicle my minimalism makes a hasty retreat. As part of one of the luxuries, I am going to put pressurized potable water on board. I am using a marine grade shurflo pump. The question is storage. I have a plan with my builder to use water bladders and place those in custom boxes. My other thought is a custom made tank. The Front Runners do not fit the way I want. My main concerns, are proper baffling to contain displacement issues and lateral acceleration during technical and faster off-roading and also a good fit so as not to waste space. What have others done? Does anyone know of a fabricator that can make a baffled potable tank?
 

Joe917

Explorer
You can get tank baffle balls that slow the water surge. I would stay away from flexible bladders because of abrasion failure.
 

llamalander

Well-known member
I 2nd the warning about bladders, I really wanted them to work, but had to give up on them after the second one failed.
If you're having a tank made out of metal, baffles should be no problem.
Another option is linking together a few smaller poly tanks, which are pretty durable and very economical--check out Ronco or Class A customs. Obviously, the connections allow more opportunity for leaks, but they can be shut-off valves.
Driving with a 48"x16"x 9" high tank in the bed up against the cab (21 gal) the water had no effect on the momentum I could feel, starting, stopping or turning, so don't worry too much about baffles unless you want lots of water handy.
 

tanuki.himself

Active member
I'm using Plastimo water bladders on my camper build. I've only done static tests on a single bladder so far but i'm impressed with how well it moulds to the complex shape i have between my C shaped floor joists and how much of the available volume is actually usable - if i used rigid tanks i think the best i could get would be around 80% due to clearances and i would have to make them myself to that size. if I were to use off the shelf tank sizes i would probably only get around 55% usage. Plus I have 4 different shapes/sizes of voids to fill, which would make the tank customisation more difficult and costly.

These bags have a strong woven outer nylon bag around the bladder, and i am taking every care to make sure there are no sharp edges or points for them to rub against as i fit them. The 6 bags i am using are interconnected for both fill and extraction, and i am hoping that they will effectively self baffle themselves as water flow between the bags will be restricted by the pipe sizes both front to back and side to side.

I'm just waiting on some new bolts to give a flush finish before test filling and measuring the volumes i am able to store - i hope to post some pictures and results on my build thread in a few days, but it will be several more weeks before i can report how they behave in the real world on my first big trip, and obviously many months/years before i can comment on reliability
 

JimboT

Member
Gents,
Being a FNG on the forum, I accidentally posted this in two places. On the the other thread someone pointed out baffle balls. I am now going with a boat tank from Ronco with Baffle balls
 

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