I currently have a Vivaro but was thinking about the Fiat Doblo Maxi next, heard some good things about them and they seem well priced and plenty of good ones knocking about, anyone got one with a 650 litre system in? The payload as far as I know is 1000kg on the lwb Maxi so should be ok for a one man operator. Be interested to know if there is enough room for the tank and are the cargo lashing points well placed for strapping tank in, also how do they handle 650 litres of water?
I wouldn't consider using the cargo eyelets to hold any size tank down. They aren't designed for that.
Spruce, out of interest. Cargo eyelets that are on bolts rather than welds - could you remove them and bolt angle iron or suchlike where they were once threaded to retain a tank in some way ? in other words is it the strength of the eyelet thats questionable or what they are attached to ?
These eyelets were never designed to hold back any heavy load. On the original Berlingo/Partner vans the rear ones were spotwelded to the wheel arches and we made of wire bent in the shape of a hook. They could be easily reshaped with a pair of pliers. They were basically there for use with a cargo net to keep small packages contained under it.
If you look at the tank frame that Purefreedom sell as an example. They sell a crash tested system. They use spreader plates for under the floor of the van. I looked under a van once and they looked like about 100 to 120mm square steel probably 5mm thick.
So you could remove those eyelets and fit a good size spreader plate underneath using high tensile (HT) bolts.
Grippatank use a similar system of spreader plates but they also sell an epoxy to go between the plate and the floor (or they used to. They supplied this with a DIY fitted system a cleaner bought probably 5 or 6 years ago.)
But as with all these things its your responsibility to ensure that what you have done is safe. P/F try to mount the tank as close to the front bulkhead as possible as another safety consideration. Is it also possible to drill mounting holes through the chassis and use smaller spreader plates there?
I will try to find an photo of how one windie did his fitting this evening.
One of the other tank fitters also used spreader plates but with long HT bolts that extended below the chassis line. A nut would tighten the tank down securely. He would do this on each side of the chassis rail. He would then fit a length of 50 or 75mm flat bar 6mm thick across the width of the van . It would have holes drilled to line up with the extra long bolts. In the case of an accident that length of flat bar would use the chassis rails of the van to add further restrictive strength.
We all need to realise that crash testing is done and certificated at 30mph. Most of these systems that have a certificate would fail in much higher impact speeds.