Petrol Leak When tank full

[west E]

This might sound daft but here it goes,

I filled my van with fuel to the max. Paid for fuel, returned to my van which stunk of petrol. When I looked under the van fuel appeared to be leaking from a couple of pipes around the tank, the breathers i think.
The van is a wetsy 2.0 ltr Aircooled. The leak stop after a while but every time i want to fill the tank to the max the same thing occurs!!

is this normal? as this is my first van i didn't know if it was a common problem or what the problem is.

ta

ian

[skell]

common problem

fuel hoses from main tank to expansion tanks in the wheel arches perish
cure is a couple of feet of new fuel line, drop the tank and replace. check rest of fuel line too from tank to carb and back again, replace anything dodgy or better just replace it all, its cheap and you don't want to burn your van down....do it asap
see wiki
http://www.club80-90.co.uk/wiki/index.p ... ther_tanks

[dink]

defiantely a common problem, i had to replace the tank on an '83 Aircooled bus, now it seems the tank on my new bus is going the same way
it's the breather pipes that run along the top of the tank on either side, they sit very close to the top of the tank, close enough for road dirt to get stuck in there and rot the pipes out
last time when i refitted a new tank i went all round the breather pipes with seam sealer so that there's not place for them to rot out
and i think now you'll have trouble finding a new earlly tank, as the later tanks have a smaller filler neck, so you might end up having the change the filler neck aswell $$$'s

[west E]

Cheers.


i'll have a look when i get chance. At the mo' i am just not brimming the tank. If its gonna cost plenty of kerching i'll live with it for now.

ian

[skell]

worth having a look, might just be the cheap fuel hoses and not the tank itself

[kathyshack]

also worth considering if you plan to convert to lpg at some point in the future. if so, i'd leave it, and put the money towards the lpg conversion....

[toomanytoys]

NOT normal, but a common problem with 23+ year old rubber hose

DONT just leave it... the vapours could collect and a carelessly discarded cig, could ignite it..
the breather hoses are a pain to get at withthe tank in place, but possible... there is 1 either side near to the front of the tank, these are the hardest to get at and usually missed too.. it could be that the pipes from the expansio tanks are steel (very early vans were, well 2 that I have seen were) and they rust.. use a bit of copper brake pipe to replace.

The other thing is, if petrol is getting out, dirt and water can get in... so check your fuel filter

[irishkeet]

Hi
when I filled up the other day I also noticed some small leakage but it seemed to be coming from the pipes to the heater pumb, again only happening with a full tank.

Would like to check the hoses etc, Im in North London is there is anyone thats not a million miles away that has done this or is going to do it maybe we could hook up and work it out together, switiching ti LPG with Steve in Sept but would still like to get it done.

Also where do ya get the hose from

thanks
keet

[aarons56]

I'm in North Finchley. I didn't do it myself - bought the van at Kent Motorhomes. The tank leaked when it was full. I ended up taking it back 3 times; first, the tank was corroded on the top, needed replacing, then a cracked plastic breather pipe and then perished expansion tank pipes. The mechanic knows what he's doing and pretty thorough. I don't know how much they'd charge as it was done under warranty. Whatever you do, there are at least three places where they may be a leak. As it turned out, mine leaked in all three!

[CovKid]

I've also heard of a case where rust had attacked the top of a T25 tank so badly it had turned into a bowl!