I've been working with Marvin Homsley at Smoke System Helper to install his smoke oil tank. He's been great to work with and always available for questions. This is an aluminum, welded, wedge shaped tank that fits in the unused space right behind the seat in a side-by-side. As soon as I saw this product, I jumped on it as it was exactly what I was looking for. In fact, I am installing the first prototype that Marvin produced. It has a vented cap and a flop tube as part of the tank. I will guide you through my installation with a few posts. Click on the heading "Smoke System" on the right side to see all of them.
This first picture shows how it came to me, out of the box. You can see a slight bend in the "leg", not really a big deal as its easily bent back in shape, but a little better packaging could solve this.
It comes with a bung hole welded into the tank and fitting already installed. As you can see, this is some nice aluminum welding work.
The vented filler cap. I'm not sure if this will create an unpleasant odor of smoke oil in the cockpit, but it is a consideration I will monitor after I am flying.
Test fitting the tank. I am putting mine behind the pilot side. Most will do the co-pilot side instead. My reasons are, I don't plan to remove the tank when not in use and I also want to be able to easily remove the co-pilot seat and stick for golf clubs or a snowboard on occasion. If the tank was on that side, I would have to remove it also, which would be a pain. The extra ~25 lbs of a full smoke oil tank on the same side as the pilot will have almost zero effect on weight and balance, the moment arm just isn't big enough to be of much consequence. You can see, this tank will mount to the cross bar and the seat belt bolts.
Marvin designed the tank to fit a slider. You can see, with the tip-up, you have the latch bar that gets in the way. You can fit it behind there, but it takes a little coaxing and the bar rubs on the tank. Not enough to cause the latch to bind, but it isn't ideal that it rubs. I plan to work with Marvin on an idea I have to eliminate this rub.
For some reason the angle on the "legs" doesn't match the angle on the floor. Marvin intends for this to be cut to fit so not too much of a big deal.
Here is what it looks like with the seat in place. Plenty of room. Actually, Marvin could have easily made this tank a little bigger in my opinion.
Time to start trimming the legs. This was my first cut, to get it more in line with the floor angle.
I don't like sharp edges, so I added some nice radii and drilled my hole to match the seat belt mounting holes
Getting the tank positioned to drill into the cross support. Make sure you have room for your hose fitting coming out the side before committing. Check...and double check...goes without saying at this stage of the build.
I used some nice large fender washers and AN3 bolts to distribute the load in case of a frontal impact in a crash situation. Also notice, I added radii to the mounting flange also. This flange is a little big, if you are lightweight proponent, you could trim this down a little.
So, that is pretty much it for the tank install...it was pretty straightforward. I plan to paint my tank black to match the rest of the interior, and when I do, you will hardly even notice the tank is there. I was happy with how this came together.
Moving on to the smoke oil injectors. Marvin will sell you the wider clamps with the holes already drilled, which is nice if you've ever drilled stainless steel, you'll know its a pain. I have two injectors, one for each pipe. Really simple to install...
Drill your 1/4 diameter hole, insert the injector and fasten with the strap clamp. Be careful not to tighten these straps too much as they easily will deform your pipe...ask me how I know? :) Next post will focus on the hose routing and final details to make it all come together.
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