[DeTomaso] Fuel tank vent install/fuel blockage resolution

Sat Apr 26 10:04:41 EDT 2008

So it turns out all the respect you garner from the POCA members is justified--all this time you've been a man of the cloth...!

Chris
#3846

> From: MikeLDrew at aol.com
> Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:40:00 -0400
> To: detomaso at realbig.com
> Subject: [DeTomaso] Fuel tank vent install/fuel blockage resolution
> 
> Hi guys,
> 
> Today was the day that I finally tackled the installation of the fuel tank 
> vent, in the hopes that I could once and for all resolve the nagging fuel 
> starvation issues I've been suffering off and on for the past year.   Chris Difani 
> kindly offered up his extensively equipped (and extraordinarily dusty) barn, as 
> well as his experience and creativity, to help with the task.
> 
> My drive up there was thankfully uneventful; the red fuel light was on as I 
> left my house, and since it was a good 45 miles or so, the tank was fairly 
> empty by the time I got there.
> 
> As Baldrick used to say on the BBC comedy "Blackadder", "I have a cunning 
> plan!"   My scheme was to remove the fuel tank vent, and also remove the fuel 
> filler gooseneck.   Once I removed whatever gick and debris was under the fuel 
> tank vent flange (which I believed had been secured with RTV, which was being 
> attacked by the gasoline), I was going to vacuum the tank clean, so to speak.
> 
> Chris has a mondo electric fuel pump, which is not yet installed in his car.  
>  My plan was to stick a hose into the tank, run it through a clear filter, 
> then to the electric pump, and send the output line back into the tank.   In 
> this manner, I would just cycle the fuel while using a wand at the end of the 
> fuel hose like a vacuum pickup to get any debris I could find, out of the tank.
> 
> We started out by removing the fuel filler gooseneck, which is necessary in 
> order to remove the cover over the tank, which in turn is necessary in order to 
> remove the vent.   That all went quite smoothly (shockingly smoothly in fact, 
> thanks to a long allen-wrench socket with a ball end, gotta get me one of 
> those!)
> 
> With that done, Chris cranked out a small die grinder and an aluminum 
> grinding stone.   The aluminum stone grinding on the aluminum rivets would generate 
> no sparks, but we took no chances and had fire extinguishers standing by.
> 
> With the heads ground off the rivets, the stock vent could be removed (by the 
> way, I decided to do this job without removing the side window, which turned 
> out to be a wise choice).   Once the vent was off, the rivet remnants had to 
> be dealt with.   I crouched on the gearbox and held the bottom of each one 
> (through the vent hole) with a pair of vice-grips while Chris used a spring-loaded 
> punch to slowly drive the remnants of the rivet down through the respective 
> hole.
> 
> With that out of the way, it was time to clean up any residual RTV goo (of 
> which there was precious little) and then fire up the electric fuel pump vacuum. 
>   It took a lot of futzing around to get the various fittings and hoses to 
> let everything work, but eventually we had a very workable system, and I went to 
> work.
> 
> I was able to look through the side window, straight down into the tank, and 
> with the aid of a flashlight, see the bottom.   I had my wand/hose down there 
> and was poking around, looking for debris.   There were a few flashes of 
> brightness visible but much of the rest of the bottom was dark.   Then it dawned on 
> me--my tank is aluminum (early '71 tank in my July '72 car, as my stock tank 
> rusted to shreds and somebody gave me this one).   I looked closer, 
> and...and....
> 
> ...and, well, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.   So I got rid of 
> the wand/hose affair, Chris got a coathanger and bent it up, and we stuck it in 
> there and pulled out this:
> 
> http://members.aol.com/mikeldrew/TankFuzz.jpg
> 
> That, my friends, is circa 1970s or early 1980s, and is a piece of a thin 
> bedspread!   Note the ruler in the photo to show the size.
> 
> This sucker has been disintegrating and plugging up fuel lines for 30 years!  
>  In fact a previous owner of this tank pulled it out of his car and replaced 
> it, for reasons I didn't ever learn.   Now I know!
> 
> Can you imagine how many millions of miles I would have had to drive before 
> this whole thing had made its way into innumerable fuel filters???
> 
> So, with that removed, now I could see the tank, and there was plenty of 
> other debris visible. So we fired up the fuel pump again and I sucked around for 
> about ten minutes.   There were some big pieces (not cloth--mostly globs of RTV 
> I think) that were so large that they would just stick to the end of the 
> metal pipe, so I would carefully extract it from the tank and then pick the debris 
> off the end with my fingers.   But there was a bunch of other, smaller debris 
> in there too, and in just a few minutes the new fuel filter looked like this:
> 
> http://members.aol.com/mikeldrew/ClearFilter.jpg
> 
> Lots of bits of aluminum (some from the countless rivets which had been used 
> to secure things to this tank, and some from the tank itself, which had about 
> nine holes drilled around the area where the flange attaches), as well as 
> pieces of rag fuzz, RTV and who knows what else.
> 
> I was also able to directly see the fuel pickup in the tank, and noted that 
> it had no sock on it, and evidently never did.   I guess that feature was added 
> to the later tanks, and/or the fuel pickup incorporated into the fuel level 
> sender.
> 
> We then cleaned off the top of the tank, and I laid down a thin bead of 
> Hylomar, the whip-daddy sealant for these sorts of applications, then laid the new 
> gasket in place, then another bead of Hylomar, then put the new vent/rollover 
> valve in place and (with both of us working various ends of the rivet tool) 
> secured it.
> 
> A vent hose went on, the fuel gooseneck and tin shield went back in place, 
> and we were done.   Mission accomplished!
> 
> I now know that the coffee-cup-sized fuel filter I just added is superfluous, 
> but I figure it can't hurt so I'll leave it in place.   
> 
> Fuel starvation has been the Achilles heel of this car for over a year, and I 
> can now well and truly state that the problem has been resolved once and for 
> all!   I am most grateful to Chris for helping out in this most noble 
> endeavor.
> 
> I left his ranch and drove to the Sacramento airport and picked up Gray 
> Gregory, who will be driving with me to Vegas.   Tomorrow we're going to the PCNC 
> tech session at Roger Sharp's place; I have a small list of small jobs I want 
> to accomplish on my car, plus a fellow is bringing a steering rack for me to 
> rebuild.   Then Sunday is the Pacific Coast Dream Machines show, Monday we take 
> care of various last-minute details, and Tuesday we're on the road to Las 
> Vegas, baby! :>)
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> **************
> Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used 
> car listings at AOL Autos.
>       
> (http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
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