A tank heater was designed using a 60" long gas appliance connector. The connector is inserted into the tank and coiled around the fuel pickup screen. Hot coolant is run though the connector, thus heating the fuel pickup and melting congealed SVO on sub-zero mornings.

Removing the old tank. Installation is the reverse of removal.

Tank after the hole was cut and heater inserted. Notice the vent pipe near the top of the hole! It was only through sheer luck that the vent pipe was not cut with the angle grinder.

Close up of inside the tank. The heater is coiled around the fuel pickup. I think a 72" long connector would have been more ideal as it could have been coiled around the pickup more times, but they are hard to find due to longer uncoated appliance connectors being against building codes. I ordered this one on ebay.

The large hole was sealed using a cork gasket and lots of "gasoline/oil resistant" formagasket. The smaller hole where the ends of the connector protrude the tank was overlaid with metal strips, covered in formagasket, and then covered in JB weld (for rigidity)

The large hole seems to leak ever so slightly, the small one not at all. If I had re-installed the carpeted panel that covers the tank it would have never been noticed.

A $10 inside / outside temperature sensing unit was acquired. The external probe was installed in the engine compartment (at the moment it is taped to one of the fuel injector lines.) The unit also contained an internal temperature sensor. This sensor was taken out, attacked to a long wire, and JB-welded to a magnet and dropped into the fuel tank right near the fuel pickup.



Direct link to temperature sensor of similar quality from Harbor Freight. They only read up to 158 Degrees Fahrenheit. but for this purpose it will work just fine.