mfain

I have a couple of questions for an expert on the 62 RPO 488 big tank option. I bought a 62 a few months ago that had been a drag car for 20 plus years and has been sitting for 10 years or so. It's pretty solid and surprisingly intact with evidence of damage only behind the right rear wheel. It is a hardtop-only car (no evidence of any softtop hardware and no holes in the decklid for the latches). It does not have a gas tank cover, but has a standard 16 gallon tank installed. However, the rear tank hold-down strap mounting brackets are located further back in a position where you could not install a regular gas tank cover. The original holes where the rear brackets would have been mounted are fiberglassed over with a course fiberglass cloth like Chevy used "back in the day" for repairs. The tank straps are not correct for the 16 gallon tank and have been cut and bolted together to accomodate the 16 gallon tank and the odd rear mounting brackets. A couple of other observations -- the two large holes in the fiberglass floor below the tank have a round metal-rubber-metal sandwich with a single bolt through the middle to seal the tank cavity from the underside of the car. The two large round holes in the vertical panel separating the gas tank area from the trunk have both been elongated up and outboard for no apparant reason. The fuel vent line (from the 16 gallon tank) incorrectly exits the tank enclosure behind the center of the back of the tank and is sealed with a white caulk. There is no evidence that the car has ever had a gas tank cover installed. Are there things I should look at in an attempt to determine is this might have been a big tank car? Thanks for any help you can give me.

Pappy

DZAUTO

By any very small chance, when you acquired the car, did you just happen to get extra parts which included a gas filler door with a hole in the door? Big tank cars had a gas filler door like the one below.



Tom Parsons

jimh_1962

If it is a big tank car then what??? Are you going to fabricate a big tank??? The option has to include the parts... No telling what was done. Just like a fuelie car without the original motor with the correct brackets and markings does not make it a fuelie unless you can find the correct dated motor and fuel injection.

Just my opinion is all. It would be cool to take some pictures and post them.

DZAUTO

Soooooooooooooooooo, unless it has the correct FI engine and FI unit, it's not a fuelie, right?

DANG, and all this time I thought this was a fuel injection car.



Tom Parsons

hedgehead

See, you learn something everyday.

62corvette

I wrote the article for the NCRS Restorer about 20 years ago on the 24-gallon tank and installation. I sent you a PM.
Mike Ernst

rustylugnuts

Not every big tank C-1's had the fuel filler neck protruding through the filler door.

rustylugnuts

corvette-62

Being that the '62 was a drag car...ANYTHING could have been modified on that car.....

DZAUTO

Mike,
Do you know what issue that was?

Tom Parsons

1963GrayGray

I believe that is correct. These is a 61 FI tanker near here that has factory overspray marks on the LH floor where both filler doors were painted, but the door without the hole for the filler neck was used.

Dave

ps374

The poster said it was a" hardtop only car". Didnt every C1 come with a soft top?

wmf62

no, you got one or the other, and then the
'other' was an option
Bill

DZAUTO

Big tank cars HAD TO BE hard top only, because the large tank filled up the area where a soft top would normally be.

Also, as mentioned, a soft top WAS NOT standard. ONE TOP was standard, the second top was an option. MOST cars, when ordered by the dealer, got a soft top and the hard top was frequently included in the dealer's order, just as radio, heater, white walls, FI, etc, which were ALL options. Probably most cars that were hard top only were customer order cars. Also, the low demand options such as HD brakes/suspension, big tank, wide wheels, etc, would have MOSTLY been customer ordered. Those kinds of options would not be typically desireable by Corvette buyers (if we had only known back then!!!!). Remember, with the wide wheel option, ONLY dogdish caps were available. Back then, who in the heck would want crappy looking dogdish caps on their cool Vette??????? (GOD, I WISH I'D KNOWN THIS STUFF 54YRS AGO!!!!!!!!)
In 57, the FI, HD brake cars (RPO 579D) DID NOT get the radio or heater. The fresh air inlet hose for the heater was directed through the right inner fender for rear brake cooling. But with 58-later cars, a heater COULD BE HAD with HD brakes because a different method of directing air for rear brakes was used (known as elephant tusks).

Tom Parsons

mfain

Thanks for the responses! I have been in contact with Mike Ernst and I will send him photos of the tank area for his assessment. My primary concern is to not screw up something original if it is something GM did back in the day. If there is any probability that this was a big tank car, I will leave the affected areas intact, even if I leave the 16 gallon tank and cover it with a correct (for the small tank) gas tank cover. For having been a drag car for so long, the car shows little evidence of damage is surprisingly intact, with a lot of the original pieces onboard and working.

Pappy

mfain

Again, thanks to the help of Corvette Forum members, I did not alter or destroy a piece of history. It appears that my 62 was indeed a real 24 gallon tank car, even though the tank is no longer with the car. I will preserve the areas of the car that were originally modified by GM for the tank, in case someone wants to restore the car in its future. I have included photos of the the modified areas in the photos section of my profile for those interested.

Pappy

jimh_1962

Recently there was a big tank repro on ebay. You can give it a try if you want to go that route.

mfain

Thanks. I have tracked down roughly the time period and place where the tank was removed, so I may have a shot at locating it. I also have enough detailed photos of a real tank that I could reproduce it -- I even thought about building one that looks correct but contains a bladder, but that would be time-consuming and expensive and, in the end, it still would not be "correct". For now I will build fiberglass "disks" that I can lightly bond over and around the factory modified areas to preserve them, and I will put the small tank and correct tank cover back in.