Threaded Rod for 20-lb LP Gas Tanks

Video Transcript for JR Products Gas Tank Threaded Rod Review

Hi there propane users, today we're going to be taking a look at replacement threaded rods for your propane tanks. These are available in either a 20 pound tank length rod, which is the one that we've got currently installed for our 20 pound tanks, as well as a 30 pound tank length rod. And that's this longer one here. You can see, let me hold it up next to this one. It's going to be taller to accommodate for those taller 30 pound tanks. Both rods are going to be the same diameter and thread pitch.

So they're a half inch diameter bolt with a 13 for its thread pitch. The longer rod is going to be 23 and a half inches long, and our shorter one is going to be 17 and a half. So it's your 30 and your 20 pound tank. The portion that is threaded on each side of the rod is gonna be about three and three quarters of an inch to let you know how much travel you're going to have to get your tank cinched down. And that's going to be the same on each side.

So you can adjust the height of your rod, where it threads down at the bottom as well. Now these are a direct replacement for etrailer's exclusive JR products, propane tank holders. But this is a very common size, and this is more than likely going to be the same for your trailer, but we've given you those measurements. So you can double check that for yourself. Now, this rad, for the most part, it should last for the life of your trailer, but accidents do sometimes happen.

You could be floating in some gear or something and accidentally bend the rod or nick up the threads to make it very difficult to get the tanks on and off. So when you're wanting to swap your tanks out with new ones, when you're going to that next destination, you want to make sure you're all filled up, it can be a real big pain to do so if the threads are all damaged up. If your trailer sits outside for a lot of time, when it's just in storage and it's exposed to corrosion and moisture, it can damage your threads there and be very difficult to get these off as well. So those are kind of the most common reasons you'd wanna replace this, that or also an accident. Another reason you might want to replace this is if you're upgrading your trailer.

Let's say you've got 20 pound tanks like I do here on mine. And we find that for a weekend maybe this is enough, but if we wanna have an extended stay, maybe a three or four day weekend, that we don't have quite enough in there. We want to upgrade to 30 pound tanks. We can get that longer rod and still reuse all of our old components here and swap out to those larger tanks with this new rod. Now replacing the rod is pretty easy. It's as simple as just unscrewing it. Now I do understand up here at the top, if you've got some issues with your threads, you might have a slightly more difficult time, but the nut here on top, you could easily put a wrench on that to get some additional assistance getting this off. If the T portion here, isn't enough to do it by hand. We do also have tap and die kits available here at etrailer. If you need to get one, to be able to clean those threads up, so you can get that old one off of there if it's in that bad of condition. After you get the top pulled off there, your nut, we can then remove the hold down rod. When taking this off, you do often have to lift up on one tank slightly, just so you can get that off of there. And then you can just twist that and slide that out of the way. At this point, our rod just threads right out of here. Now, this is another time where if you have some heavy corrosion, this could be difficult, but you could easily just take a pair of vice grips and grip on the rod. I would recommend gripping on a portion where it's not threaded. So that way, if you we're trying to save this for like a backup or anything like that, you don't mess it up any further. So we can just slide that out of there. And then we'll just choose the new rod. We're gonna go ahead and go with the 20 pounds since we don't have larger tanks, the sticker on your rod, sometimes it's on the thread when you receive it. So I'd recommend putting that towards the bottom cause you don't need to have this threaded that far down in there when you're putting it in. I usually feel the bottom for the threads to poke out. And then I just get a couple of threads poking out the bottom to make sure that I've got plenty of meat there to grab on bottom. And then it's just as simple as reinstalling your other components, slide that in get the appropriate match there, push the other tank out of the way, drop that on there. And we can now just cinch this back down using the nut. And that completes our look at the replacement threaded rod for your propane tanks..