Club 80-90 Forums

OK, so i was lucky in that some previous owner had bought her a nice new tank (This is my 81 Panel Van) but getting it back on seems to be tricky.

My difficulties stem from trying to get the breather pipe back into it's mounting bracket on the van floor. If you route it over the main heat pipe to the cab, then it is impossible (at least with hands my size) to get in and push the two 'Y' pieces into their respective holes in the tank.

I have read the club Wiki on the subject https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Fu ... nk_removal" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and made up some longer hoses to connect with the expansion bottles on both sides. Is it OK to run this breather pipe UNDER the heat pipe which means I can put it in situ before putting the tank 'up', which will then only leave the filler neck and it's breather pipe to wrestle with?

A bit of Vaseline helps get the tubes back in. I was fortunate to have the help of my 10yr old son. The pipes only allow fuel vapor to exit the tank at filling so I shouldn't think it matters. I would route as you suggested but allow slack, stick the tubes to the tank with gaffer so the heater tube doesn't pull them out when the tank gets pushed up. Hope this makes sense.

Kids are great. They have small hands a fingers that can get into all them hard to reach places.

the pipe stays attached to the body and you pop the ends into the grommets when the tank is up in place, over the top of the chassis rails I can even get my fat hands in there, judicious use of a pry bar to pop the balance pipe and the filler breather out of the grommets before it comes down

jimpainter wrote:Kids are great. They have small hands a fingers that can get into all them hard to reach places.

Thats why this country is in the state it is now, a bit of child labour wouldn't go a miss in my eyes.

Aidan wrote:the pipe stays attached to the body and you pop the ends into the grommets when the tank is up in place, over the top of the chassis rails I can even get my fat hands in there, judicious use of a pry bar to pop the balance pipe and the filler breather out of the grommets before it comes down

So that's how it's done , unfortunately someone had already replaced the tank on mine for an earlier one, so when I had to replace it again this was not the setup.
Probably a similar situation in this case.

Thanks for the advice, it's all done now, the tricky bit for me was working out how to access the various holes in the top of the tank once it was up there. In the end I used longer breather pipes and cut them to length once it was up. A trolley jack on the tank supports helped. You CAN get your hands in there from either side to push the breather pipes back into the top of the tank, it just doesnt look like it at the start!