Fuel Tank Breather

[Guest notsli]

Hi everyone. I have a 2B with a stainless fuel tank, but it doesn't seem to have any means for venting air from the tank when filling it up. The rigid plastic filler pipe seems to go almost to the bottom of the tank and there is no vent pipe, that I can see, so as soon as the fuel level reaches the bottom of the rigid pipe it seems to trap the air in the tank and the fuel just backs up the filler pipe. Ive had a look and can not see any provision for a vent pipe on the tank.

 

What I'm thinking of doing is to drill a hole in the top of the tank (near the pump), put some kind of tank connector in and attach some fuel hose to it. The filler cap seems to be from the original donor Sierra and there is a little bit of 12 mm pipe attached to the side of the metal filler neck. It seems the obvious place to fix the other end of my breather pipe.

 

Has anyone else experienced this problem ? If so how did you solve it ? Where's the best place to get the bits I need ?

 

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

John

[Guest markhorton]

Why not drill some holes into the filler neck below the rubber doughnut so that the air comes out at that level and up the neck. It wouldn't cost anything then as all you are doing is modding what you've got. HTH. Mark

[miikae]

Yes as mentioned above drill holes in the filler pipe , i had the same problem as i could not fill the tank completly .

 

 

Mike

[Guest notsli]

Why not drill some holes into the filler neck below the rubber doughnut so that the air comes out at that level and up the neck. It wouldn't cost anything then as all you are doing is modding what you've got. HTH. Mark

 

 

Thanks Mark. I thought of trying that, but it's a bit difficult to get to because of the boot cover. I assumed that I would have to remove the pipe to do it and wasn't sure how to do that without creating problems with leaks etc. As you can probably tell, I am a complete novice !!

 

Thanks again for your suggestion

 

John

[Guest notsli]

Yes as mentioned above drill holes in the filler pipe , i had the same problem as i could not fill the tank completly .

 

 

Mike

 

 

Thanks Mike. Perhaps I'll have another look at it in the morning.

 

John

[Peter Bell]

The plastic pipe should be cut off so that it just sticks inside the tank.

[Mitch]

I agree with Pete, why drill holes in it if your taking it out, shorten it, much better fix,

 

Mitch

[Longboarder]

why drill holes in it if your taking it out, shorten it, much better fix,

That length of redundant pipe in the tank is firmly locating itself. Assuming you can use a ruler, the holes or amputating will result in the same volume being made available in the tank. In a shunt the long filler neck will not pull out and if the disruption is elastic and returns to close to original positions then it may not even leak.

 

Nigel

[ibrooks]

I'd go with a little of both suggestions. There's no reason for the pipe to go as far into the tank as you've described so cut some off. You do want some left in there to avoid the risk of it coming out at an inconvenient moment. Measure how much sticks below the seal in the tank and drill several big-ish holes around an inch below the bottom of the seal.

 

However.....

Is the sender any easier to get to? The Sierra sender has a vent built into it. If you are adding a vent then I'd advise doing it in the sender's mounting plate for a couple of reasons. First it's easy to remove it from the tank and work on it, it can relatively easily be cleaned of petrol so you can safely solder/braize/weld a fitting to it and if you make a horlicks of it you can replace it a lot easier than the whole tank.

 

On my GTM I find that I can fill the tank quite quickly for the first two thirds but the last part I have to go slowly because the filler neck joins the tank on it's side. That means that once the fuel gets to this level I can only add fuel at the same speed that the vent pipe can allow air to escape - you don't end up dribbling fuel in but you can't just pile it in as fast as the pump can go. If you drill the filler pipe to an inch or so below the seal and add a vent then you'll have this effect for that last inch or so of fuel.

 

Iain

[Guest notsli]

Thanks for all your helpful replies.

I am going to try to remove the pipe and drill it. Sorry if this sounds realy lame, but can anyone tell me the best way to get the damn thing out. Can I just prize it out ? I can't imagine that it is that simple. I tried to post a photo of it with this reply, but the file is too big.

 

Any further suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

John

[miikae]

Remove the two rear panel fixing screws , pull pipe back a little to free it off , then twist and pull and there you are , free to drill holes etc

 

 

Mike

[Guest notsli]

Remove the two rear panel fixing screws , pull pipe back a little to free it off , then twist and pull and there you are , free to drill holes etc

 

 

Mike

 

 

Thanks for the prompt reply Mike. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have any fixing screws. I wonder if it's a home made job ! It has a collar around the pipe. I wonder if it's just glued in. I'll go and have another look at it. It just orrured to me that, what I thought was a collar is just a cover over the screws.

[Guest notsli]

Thanks for the prompt reply Mike. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have any fixing screws. I wonder if it's a home made job ! It has a collar around the pipe. I wonder if it's just glued in. I'll go and have another look at it. It just orrured to me that, what I thought was a collar is just a cover over the screws.

 

 

EUREKA !!! I just losened it with a big screwdriver and it came out with a bit of wiggling a good tug. All I've got to do now is get it back in again, once I've drilled it. I don't think I will shorten it too much as the pipe is just a friction fit in the rubber ring.

 

Thanks guys, for your all your help.

 

Merry Christmas to you all

 

John

[ibrooks]

That sounds like the standard Sierra setup - the filler neck is just a push fit through the big rubber seal in the top of the tank. Unless the seal looks to be in "as new" condition it's worth considering replacing it - I bought one from Ford when I built mine and it cost less than a fiver from the main stealer's parts desk. Better to replace it whilst it's out anyway than to find out that you need to pull it all apart again in a few months time.

 

Iain

[Guest salty_monk]

Yep.. the re-used ones from Donor have a habit of leaking....