Well,
I go out this morning to the RustRover that's been sitting waiting on me to play with for a week while SWMBO has been very ill (As far as we can tell District Nurse and Midwife are the only forms of primary health care we haven't tried in the last 3 days - she's a bit better now).
There is a wet spot under the rear.
There is a big wet spot under the rear
There is a stench of petrol.
Well, looks like the fuel tank has a hole.
So, I have a look, and it looks like the hole is somewhere above the line of the rear mounting bracket, ah well. Off to Hell^H^H^Halfords to get some epoxy petropatch and a socket set as somewhere along the line my 1/2" socket has cracked.
I get back and get the Haynes and look for the section on how to remove the fuel tank. OK - section 3 - fuel system. Turn to section 3. Look at contents for section 3. Main fuel tank is page 20. Turn to page 20..... Umm
- try again. Turn to page 20..... WTH?? Section 3 ends at page 19.
Now, given that the original RangeRover manual has to be around 20 years old now at least I suspect that they have let some spotty little herbert edit it to remove all "dangerous" tasks, such as removing the main fuel tank. Haynes manuals have definitely gone to hell in a hand basket recently.
Anyway, I get one of the nuts off the rear bracket, and the other two have rounded. No problem - hammer a 12mm socket onto them and off they come.
At this point I discover that the bracket is actually part of the fuel tank, or so it seems. I also discover that the work I have done to remove these nuts has caused the fuel drip to turn into a pissing leak.
So I get out of there and look around. Ah - there's something that looks like a drain plug - this car should only have around 3 gallons in it anyway, so let's just let all the fuel out into a catcher can.
Can I move the drain plug? Even with a power bar? Can I hell!
It looks like the tank has rusted all the way along the leading edge of the rear bracket and as such is going to continue pissing fuel until it is empty. I have put oil drainer cans where most of the fuel is falling, but obviously can't catch it all, and I'll take my chances with it evaporating rather than putting newspapers under it to become a wick.
So - the questions for the group wisdom (you knew it was coming, didn't you?)
1) Is the bracket actually part of the tank, or am I just damn unlucky2) is there any easy way to remove the drain plug? It appears to be a brass one which will round very easily if I abuse it.
3) Does anybody know of a "cheap" source of fuel tanks for 82 model 5 door RR V8s? Is there anybody who has done the LPG conversion who would have the original tank they'd be willing to part with?I would very much like to get this car back on the road as it was going to be my project runaround for the next few months, but I'm buggered if I'm paying main dealer prices for any of the parts if I can avoid it (£329.98 for a replacement fuel tank for this particular car). Just "doing an LPG conversion" is right out again because of the costs. At the point I spend more on keeping a car on the road over a year than it cost to buy then I consider it a write off and it goes to the big crusher in the sky.
Thanks
P.