YJ fuel line return hose leak

Oh I forgot to mention that it's a 1994 with a 20 gallon tank. The fuel pump sender is bolted in with the 20 gal tank.

I looked and couldn't find any short cuts.

TIA again!

You should drop the tank. The problem might be a crack in the return elbow at the fuel pump. Drain as much of the fuel as you can. because fuel is heavy. Then get someone to help you lower the tank. Use a floor jack and a piece of plywood. Don't forget the filler hose and pump connection has to be removed . You might be able to lower it enough to reach in and replace the hose but since my experience is the ZJ, I dunno. I took the tank out.

The return line would be going 'to' the tank I believe. You 'can' cut out the leak and install a piece of metal gas line with a couple hose clamps in place of the leak. Or cut the line after the leak, put the metal tube with clamps in and add a new rubber line to the hard line on the frame. The return metal line is 5/16" I believe.

This will usually only work for the short term because the whole line usually rots out all together unless the line got dinged which cause the leak, then no problem with a patch.

If you 'have' to drop the tank to do the whole line, I recommend you start soaking all the nuts and bolts many times for a few days before starting the job. I also would change all the rubber lines while it was open.

I am in the rust belt and in our case, sometimes it is better to 'carefully' cut an access plate in the floor to get at things. That depends on the rust level. I had no issues removing my 20 gallon tank..... It decided to part company with my CJ7 all by it's self as I was running 'baja' style across an old air strip a couple years ago. ;-) Had to cut all the remaining bolts out.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

It looks like the return hose is rotting. The fuel supply line looks newer and okay. I wondery why the PO didn't replace both while the tank was down? I bet this was a dealer or outside job. Anyway the crack is where it comes out of the tank and connects to the hardline return line.

Yep. I have the yellow chrysler service manual. It shows all that. The fuel supply hose and the return hose connect to the fuel pump sender. The vent hose that Ts into the to vent valves is okay, I think. :)

I have to get one of those liquid transfer pumps since I have about a half a tank of fuel to remove.

On the YJ the fuel supply and return hose go to the pump. The YJ has vent hoses that T into two valves on each side of pump on the tank. I think that these supposed to be shutoff valves or something if the Jeep turns over. The XJ I believe has the hoses going into the tank directly as you mentioned.

I can't use this method since the leak is at the bend where it comes out of the tank and connects to the fuel return hardline.

Good recommendation. I am a little worried about that since this might become a huge job if they are hard to remove.

Well that "ain't no" fun. :-)

You can Doug's thoughts confirm I need to drop the tank. Thanks Mike!

Dropping the tank is not that big of a task, really. No need to even drain it first if you take your time and use a hydrolic jack/flat piece of wood to slowly lower it and keep it level on the way down. You don't even have to remove the stock skid plate. The exhaust pipe is a little in the way on the way down, though, which may throw the tank a little off balance. Just work slowly and you'll be Ok. Like Mike said, the toughest part of the job will most likely be loosening (without breaking) the rusted old bolts that hold it to the frame. There are 4 up front and two in the back I believe on my

92YJ. I've replaced two fuel pumps on it over the years and just recently had the tank off in order to fabricate a new rear exhaust hanger.

Good luck and good Jeepin, Terry

If the bolts are rotted, mine didn't even have a head vise grips would grab onto left, you can hose the top of the tank with water to remove any gas fumes (only fumes explode, so a full tank of gas is the safest to be cutting or welding around) and carefully use a dremil tool with a fiberglass cut off wheel or an angle grinder to cut an access plate out from the top. It isn't that hard to do. I know a jig saw or sawsall will work too, but you really have to watch how deep you cut. I have seen/done dozens of pump access plates cut out over the years.

You are right about the vent valves being one way, when I had to put my tank on the back seat on it's side with a gas line going into the torn corner, they held gas in just fine.

Mike

Peter Parker wrote:

Yeah, there's really no way to do this without pulling the tank and replacing all the lines at the same time. I just did this while installing a Kilby fuel tank skid on my '94. Drain the tank completely and pull the tank & skid assembly. It's really not very difficult, but you need to be VERY careful to keep all hose connections capped & plugged, the fill & vent line hoses and nipples on the tank plugged, etc. It's clumsy, but if the tank is empty it's not all that heavy. Put a floor jack uder the center of the tank unit, then lower it down after removing the front bolts & rear nuts holding the skid to the frame. You have to lift it up on thr right side, drop the fill & vent nipples under the left-side spring, then lower it down & to the left. The tank is secured to the skid plate with two metal straps that unless you're changing the skid don't need to be removed. There are three hoses in an array coming from the senfing unit/pump assembly, and the vent points on the top of the tank. I'd use this opportunity to replace all of them. Since the EFI system is fairly low pressure, they just used standard fuel & vacuum lines and over the counter - type hose clamps.