[Paul Coleman]

All these things that are strapped down are all being moved temporally not permanent.

Only one way to find out though eh?

DO IT PROPERLEY DO IT ONCE!

Yeah.  And if you don't do it properly you may end up only doing it once as well 

[Davew]

Those of you going down the strapping solution, what are you securing the hooks to the floor with? Is there a proper bolt and plate available with a strengthened eye to strap to?

[tartan cleaning]

mine is strapped down i use the eyelets in the back of my pickup it has places to strap to all the down the load bed.

[john tomkins]

Someone mentioned insurance on this topic, how do you get on if you have a crash and they see the tank is a "permanent fixture" ie bolted down, has anyone mentioned this to their insurance company? and are there gonna be any problems with the drilling of holes through the chassis itself thereby weakening it. You know how they will use anything they can these days to get from of paying out

[Paul Coleman]

Someone mentioned insurance on this topic, how do you get on if you have a crash and they see the tank is a "permanent fixture" ie bolted down, has anyone mentioned this to their insurance company? and are there gonna be any problems with the drilling of holes through the chassis itself thereby weakening it. You know how they will use anything they can these days to get from of paying out

I told my insurance company and they would not renew the cover.  I went elsewhere and they were OK with it.

[Tim Morton]

Those of you going down the strapping solution, what are you securing the hooks to the floor with? Is there a proper bolt and plate available with a strengthened eye to strap to?

I have a trailer mount and have the strap going all the way under the trailer chassis, up the sides and then across the tanks ( 2 x 175L uprights ) and then attached to itself, so the only thing the strap is strapped to is itself.

Tim

[macmac]

dave
there is (or should be) anchor points in every van.you could add more but that would be up to you.
to be honest all i was trying to stress is that metal is not always stronger or a better solution in all cases. i'm sure a steel cage would be more than good enough if designed & constructed properly. me personaly, i use fabric straps.

[Bazzy1999]

I still think the anchor point is more important than the strap...(metal or fabric).

Bazz...

[JM123]

Hi Baz

What I have been saying is that the strap/cage is just as important as the anchor point.  A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  One of my honours projects for uni was studying and developing different types of seatbelt materials and fixings, if we could synthesise and manufacture spider silk then that would be the strongest tensile material in the world (by calculation a strand of spider silk .62inch in diameter would be strong enough to halt a boeing 737 at over 500mph, but without a secure anchorage it couldn't stop a crow.

Our cages are secured to the underside of the chassis by a secure secondary chassis, the tank cannot go anywhere, likewise if you use straps be sure to anchor them securely, its cheap and effective to have anchor eyes fitted to 8mm steel plates which can be welded to the underside of the van floor and have the eyes showing through the floor.  The plates should be made as big as possible to distribute as much of the energy as possible.

This is only intended as a guide and should by no means be used as a precise definition by anyone.

[Colin_Glenn]

Colin just curious, what have you clamped the straps to, I have a few sets of ratchet staps, used to tie harrier jump jets to the deck of a carrier and was going to use these to strap my tank down with, but realise the fixings have to be reliable.

Hi Jeff.

My straps are attached to the brackets that hold the bulkhead to the chassis of the cab. There are five of them 1/4 inch thick and one side is bolted to the frame of the cab with a factory fitted thread and a 13 mm bolt the other side is attached to the bulkhead with a 13mm nut and bolt.

The hooks of one strap are attached to the bottom two brackets either side. I have two straps attached to the other two brackets at the top on either side and I have the fourth attached to the fith bracket which is in the center at the top. This one is slightly looser than the rest as it is only a back up. As I said the straps are only there to stop the tank falling over backwards as I pull away or go up hill.

Being upright it is bigger than the entrance to the cab as I mentioned. If it were a flat tank I would be worried because a flat tank could easily slide into the cab in a accident;

I don't have a ladder type bulkhead, it is full steel. The bottom half is sheet steel rolled to a tube at the top which runs the width of the cab at about shoulder height to the drivers seat, the top half is a steel grill made of sheet steel with small square holes pressed out to give a grill effect. The whole bulk head is also slightly bigger than the entrance to the cab.