I did mine yesterday, on the concrete, by myself. Took me 4.5 hours start to clean-up, taking my time and taking videos. Dropped the tank, didn't cut a hole in the floor, and I'm glad. HOWEVER depending on your build, circumstances, the quality of your access panel, etc., it may make more sense for you to cut a hatch. I had about 5-6 gallons in the tank at the time. If I had to do this again, it would take no more than 3 hours, maybe 2. Less with a helper. Notes:
-'04 Astro with the plastic tank. 141k miles. Heat/rock shield underneath, no shielding on top of tank. My underbody was pretty clean and all the bolts turned fine. Dirtiest place was right on top of the pump.
-I depressurized my fuel system by pulling the pump relay (my pump still worked except for the one time it didn't), then starting the engine until it died (quickly), then cranking some more for a few seconds. I think this is worth the extra few seconds it takes to not blast high pressure gasoline everywhere. Of course disconnected the battery next.
-My strap bolts were tightened all the way on both sides. I do recommend lowering those out as much as possible on all 4 corners before disconnecting hoses and supporting/lowering the tank as they're over 2" long. I reinstalled them as I found them and I can't imagine leaving any slack in any of them.
-My straps didn't have any hidden bolts or tricks, just 2 bolts/strap, straight up into the frame rails.
-ATV jack would have been sweet but I did it with a floor jack and a piece of 6x6.
If you use a piece of wood to distribute the load of the tank, make sure it's short enough that it fits between the straps (doesn't cover one). Otherwise you won't be able to lower the tank out without disconnecting both sides of that strap. Not a huge deal if you had to do that really. The trickiest part was balancing the tank on the jack on the way down and back up, using legs, knees, arms, head, whatever is necessary while operating the jack with the other hand. I can't imagine trying to do this with much more than 5-6 gallons in the tank. Asking for trouble! Once the jack was all the way down I just rocked the tank to the front and worked the jack/wood out from underneath. Installation was the reverse.
-All my connections came apart with hand tools. One of the vent tubes required a pick to pry the teeth open from the side, and that was the only remotely difficult one. The others either required hand squeezing to open the tabs or were the kind with colored inserts; those were a little easier with needle nose pliers to squeeze the tabs but probably were do-able with hands as well. The soft lines that connect to the hard lines above the tank (right under the floor) were hard to get to because you have to reach up between the driveshaft and giant muffler, and around the edge of the tank heat shield to get to the connections (see pic). This is where I used needlenose mainly because I couldn't get both arms/hands up into that space very well.
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-There was one electrical harness connection to unhook before dropping the tank, the connector was attached to the unibody in front of the tank. It gave me a little trouble because it looked kind of crazy, with an orange piece tied to one of the wires and integrated into the connector. It turned out that I just needed to pull that piece straight out of the connection (like a safety), then I could press the tab on the connector and it came right apart. Pic:
-Connections on top of tank were simple, two with the colored inserts (squeeze the insert and pull the connector), one in the center with the molded ring (squeeze the flat parts of the ring and pull), and two electrical ones with simple tabs to pry open with your hand and pull apart. One of these did have a little blue plastic safety insert that I had to pry out before I could manipulate the tab. Pic:
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-Once I had the tank out and before I pulled the pump, I used a brush and canned air (like for a computer) to clean the top of the tank off as well as possible. Air compressor would have been better but this worked fine. You won't get everything, namely the crud that's wedged under the pump retainer ring. When I whacked that ring with hammer/screwdriver, some more crud loosened up, and I blew that away a couple more times before I had it apart. Then, there was more dirt/crud underneath when I actually pulled the pump. I carefully loosened this with my finger then tried to grab it with a shop vac, but the vacuum didn't catch all the dirt (actually threw it across the nozzle but didn't suck it in), and a few little pieces got into the tank. Just a few. If I were to do this over I would have put my hand under the rim while vacuuming, I think this would have worked better.
-A hand siphon pump and adequate gas cans are good things to have on hand so you can remove any fuel from the tank, clean it if necessary, then have a much better time reinstalling it. I didn't have these things, and I got by just fine. Fortunately my tank was very clean inside, even after my slightly botched shop-vac'ing.
-I did the fuel filter a month or two ago so I didn't replace that again.
Anyone want to bet it's being cooled by the fuel flowing through it?
