Ok, this post is about making the tank straps.
For this you will need-
1- a piece of 2 inch pipe, or something that is 2 inches around and hard enough to bend things against
2- A vice
3- A hammer or mallet
4- drill
5- Masking tape
So step one is visit home depot of maybe lowes. All the parts to build the mounting bracketry just like the manufacturer are available in either the electrical section of the home depot, and in the hardware section. (I assume lowes also)
The electrical section has the C channel and C channel specific spring nuts you want to grab. hardware has steel stock for the straps
Here is an example of the C channel spring nut-
I purchased 2 1/8th inch thick, 1.5 inch wide, flat bar stock 4 feet long. Don't get anything shorter than 4 feet, thats just the right length with a little extra. Also, I would get 3 bars, one as a practice piece.
parts from home depot-
Next grab you masking tape and tape it to the tank like so, and mark the bottom, and the centerpoints of the corner radius on the top-
Remove and place the masking tape on the bar stock like so, and transfer-
(note, the following pics show a 3 inch pipe being used, the radius on the tank is pretty close to 3 inches, so I tried that first, the problem is when you bend it back to 90 degrees, you end up with much closer to a 4 inch bend instead. The principle is the same, but use 2 inch pipe instead of what I used in the pic.
Here is an example of how close to the right bend 2 inch pipe will give you!
Its pretty much perfect
take your bar stock and mount up like so. I used a clamp to make sure my radius center point didn't move
then bend both curves-
next go in to where you marked the bottom, and make a 90 degree bend
you end up with a piece that looks like this. Factory below, jury rigged above-
Even my test piece with the wrong radius makes a pretty fair tank strap-
Once you have two of these made, grab your C channel spring nuts and break off the springs, (or keep them if you went with the far thicker C channel). You will have to break the spring off it you want to use the C nut in the factory depth C channel though.
The nut will slide like so in the C channel-
last step is cut the ends off the straps where you want them, drill 4 holes to accept bolts to run into the C channel spring nut. The factory tabs area about 1 and 3/4 inches long with a hole in the center for the bolt
Cut two pieces of the C channel 16 inches long (same as the factory pieces I have), and you should have your mounting system!