I have two tanks on my 86 f150 and need to remove one because of loss of patience and breaking the valve that switches which tank feeds the high pressure fuel pump. I found that the valve is non electric and is now obsolete... so i decided life would be simple just to remove one of the tanks. What tank would be the best one to leave on the truck? the back or the mid tank?

 

I replaced the tank reservoir/switch valve with an aftermarket motor driven electric valve. Took some doing but works very well for me.
I also replaced my rear tank and sender. Was going to do the sender only, but the tank was such a mess inside that I gave up trying to clean it and bought a new tank for $100.00 + $120.00 for sender & pump.

The front tank is 16 gal and the rear is larger 19 gal if that makes a difference to you. That's 160 or 190 miles to the next gas station for me. Did an 800 mile trip with one working tank and that got old...

Why remove one if your are not going to fix the system? Just choose one and leave the other alone.....

Another option would be to replace the rear tank with the larger aftermarket tank. If I remember right it is 30 gal., but if you get that tank you will have to relocate the spare tire somewhere else.

If you do remove a tank be sure to somehow lock down that filler door! Remember Murphy's law.... I live in 1 of the 2 states where you are not allowed to pump your own gas....

 

yeah, I wouldn't give up on having dual tanks. have you tried going bone hunting yet for the switch? otherwise, JC Whitney has a bunch of the parts too. the power solenoid looks like you bypass / replace the switch on the dash tho.

http://www.jcwhitney.com/jcwhitney/c...ustomuniversal

 

LMC Truck has the selector valve. It can be found on bottom right of page 115.
http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/fd/t.aspx?Page=114

 

That may not be the correct valve. The descriptions talk about electrical connections and the original has none. The drawings don't look right either.
Looks like this:
http://i608.photobucket.com/albums/t...ordfuelres.jpg
From what I understand this type of valve was only used for a year or 2 on the 5.0 EFI engine.

I replaced my OEM valve/filter with the Pollak 6 port valve.
I used the original dash switch but had to rewire it differently.

I spliced the valve connector into the wiring harness near the front tank and did not have to run any new wires.

I also added an inline filter to each tank.

One quirk with this setup: Since the gauge is now switched in the valve instead of the dash switch, if you switch the tank with engine off but key on, the gauge will not switch over.
This means the gauge may show you the wrong tank until you start the engine.

.

 

I ended up removing the back tank because i found that the pump didnt work. so im now running on the front tank. When it gets warmer (gasoline on your hands when its 9 degres really sucks!) i plan on puting a larger tank in place of the rear tank and sticking with one. Hoping to keep life simple.