Have you ever noticed those giant fuel tanks in the back of work trucks? They usually have a huge pump mounted on top and a giant nozzle on the front. Construction workers use them to refill machinery at the job site, and lots of times the tanks are full of diesel fuel. They are usually made from steel for utilitarian reasons, and although not at all attractive, the tanks do come in handy. Many times during long road trips, we've longed to have a spare gas tank in the bed of our trucks, just so that we could skip an extra stop at the gas pump and just keep on truckin' to our destination. We've also wished that we could head to the dirt with our bikes, without eight separate plastic gas cans sliding around in the back of the truck. Although, the reality is that we end up stopping every few hours to refuel, and it's always with a plastic jug. Having to backtrack through miles of dirt to civilization just to refill a gas can sucks, and we've done it for years. Thankfully, we've found a new solution.
Rather than waste our money on an oversized industrial tank and refilling station that not only looks awful but takes up way too much cargo room, we opted for a stylish option from Transfer Flow. Transfer Flow has primarily been known for its line of auxiliary fuel tanks. This is a company with parts you don't normally think about because they are usually hidden beneath the bed of trucks that are lucky enough to have them. But, now the company has released a line of polished truck bed toolboxes that also feature 30- or 54-gallon fuel cells built right in. The boxes are built to last with good TIG welds and thick-gauge aluminum, and are even available with a filling station built inside the box, rather than bolted on top of it. You can literally bolt one of these bad boys into your sport truck, fill it up with tools, and it will remain hidden and locked below the bedrail.
We tested the 54-gallon version, which is the largest and is recommended for trucks with 8-foot-long beds, because it will eat up all the space ahead of the wheelwells. The installation required four holes in the bed floor to mount the box, just a power and ground wire connection at the battery for the pump, and a small vent line. Billet Superstore in Anaheim, California, performed the installation in just under a couple of hours, and we were on the road with enough fuel for extra long road trips, plenty of fuel for our toys, and we also stuffed all the tools that used to reside behind the back seat into the top of the box. One modification we did have to make to our truck for the box was removing the plastic bedliner. After cutting it to pieces in an effort to retain the bedliner and the box, it became apparent that the toolbox lid would not open with the over-the-rail bedliner in place. But, a quick trip to Huntington Beach Line-X solved that problem with a form-fitting spray-in liner that not only looked better but also covered up the unsightly scratches in the floor and bedrails left from the old liner. Check it out.