fuel leak

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in news:1aaefee9-1213-478c-91de- snipped-for-privacy@f37g2000pri.googlegroups.com:

What kinda car?

A 1962 Zaporozhets with the famous V4 tank-starter engine?

Could be. Depends a lot om what kind of car it is and how the venting system works. Could be a venting hose is rotted out. Could be the filler tube rotted out. Maybe you don't have any venting system at all.

--scott

And this is on a 1930 Cord, right?

Or was it a 1919 Stutz?

Can't be the Stutz. The Stutz had two filler caps for faster pit stops during races, so it would vent through one while filling through the other.

--scott

Those old Dodge gas tanks are real good about leaking. cuhulin

Okay, okay '97 Subaru Legacy Outback wagon, 2.5 L

so, maybe I just need a non-plugged up gas cap, but it was exciting to have noxious burbling of dangerous stuff, especially with the kind of experience I've had over the years of stuff being done to my cars in this high-priced but sometimes bad neighborhood.

Tank starter engine? do you have a website with that on it? Did anyone make a vehicle with those funny little engines that start the Me 262 jet fighter? There used to be a Messerschmidt car at the U. of Wisconsin but I never got to look inside of it.

Nils K. Hammer

The gas cap is NOT vented on this car.

There is a fairly sophisticated tank venting system using a charcoal canister which is a bloody pain to get to, and some valving, and for the most part anything that goes wrong with the venting system will set a code on the computer and light the check engine light.

If you don't have a check engine light, I wouldn't worry so much.

Dunno about tank starters, but I have worked on big diesels that used a Briggs and Stratton one-lunger as a starter.

--scott

snipped-for-privacy@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in news:getd3g$pl5$1 @panix2.panix.com:

The Zaporozhets tank-starter thing is apparently an urban legend, but it sounds amusing so it makes a good story.

Google for "Pony engine" and you'll get lots of examples of small engines on larger engines, usually diesels. The bigger John Deere

Okay, I had the car up on the rack today. The filler pipe, to get around to the centrally located saddle tank, has a bend in it like a kitchen sink drain. This will collect fuel of course. I suppose filler pipes tend to rust more than I would have guessed. Tanks also have more pressure than I would have guessed. We took the plastic shield off and saw some rust, but I hadn't filled it for a long time, and it wasn't actively leaking. On the way home I put a few gallons in and it leaked again. I've never had the filler tube replaced before.

Whaddya say? Do I want to get a new one? Will it be sort of cheap? Easy to do?

If any of you are designing a car, try to get the filler pipe mostly straight down into the tank. I suppose that plastic shield over the pipes is a good thing, but it extended too far under the curved section. I think it collected dirt, which collected water, which promoted corrosion. It looks to me like the air pressure in the tank drove the fuel collected in the bend out a pinhole, which sprayed through the dirt and shield area, so it was much higher up than you'd think, and much stranger than just a drip, which I have now.

As for the EVAP system, it may be behind my stalling, but I can live with a little of that. Leaving a fuel trail like someone in a MadMax movie is what I don't want.

Nils K. Hammer

I remember many years ago seeing some old bulldozers that had small gas engines for starter ''motors'' I think some kinds of old Airplanes (Russian?) had something like that too.The Great Escape movie, there was a German Airplane that had a spring wind starter ''motor'' cuhulin

Depends on how bad it is. A good epoxy putty (like POR15's