fuel tank where pipe enters

Post by **valium** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:44 pm

Taken the fuel tank off and seems to be a brass neck where fuel pipe enters the fuel tank

Am I right in thinking this screws out and off ?? becasue I'm sure I have seen replacements for this brass looking bit advertsied. I don't want to have to buy a new tank for obviuos reasons as the rest of it looks fine.

Ta Dudes

Post by **bigginger** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:52 pm

Should be a brass coloured pipe all the way from the connector at the tank to the fuel pump - often cut just by the tank, as they can be a pig to unscrew, and flexible pipe used to connect to the main one. So yeah, it unscrews, can be a pig, and I can't remember the spanner size, Helpful, no?

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Post by **kennatt** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:27 pm

as bigginger says the pipe is often cut and joined up with flexible petrol hose.The reason, someone else has tried to get the connector off the tank and stopped when they realised that something was going to break. It 's possible to tear the tank around the connector. If I was you i'd leave well alone and just use the flexi pipe method

Post by **les** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:56 pm

I think there is a ferrule that fits over the pipe(after the nut is slipped over) then when it is screwed into the tank it swells and grips the pipe, similar to the olive and compression fittings on copper central heating pipe. It may be this slight expansion that makes it difficult to unscrew. Worth trying though as the least joins in the pipe the better.

Post by **bigginger** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:18 pm

Is there? That'll be why I've never managed to remove one, then...

Post by **les** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:23 pm

Well as I said, I THINK that is the case, it can't just be a pipe rammed in there, the nut has to push and seal against something!

Post by **bigginger** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:56 pm

No argument from here, it's certainly an extraordinarily tight fit. Perhaps I'll try heating it with a blow torch next time...

Just in case anyone's wondering, yes, that was a joke, of sorts - don't try it at home

Post by **kennatt** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:12 am

the last one I did with a full pipe front to back was fitted with a brass bell like ferrel and it fitted into a concave inside the tank unit.similar to a brake pipe .I was fitting a new tank as well.Just been to the old tank in the shed,rusted through and tested the nut with a ring spanner,ripped out of the tank as soon as I gave it a good pull,So beware

Post by **IslipMinor** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:30 am

The threaded fitting holding the fuel outlet tube into the tank also seals the internal pipe in place as well.

A few years ago I was not aware of this, and replaced the fitting with a standard adaptor and found that with an emptyish tank going up a steep hill I would get fuel starvation. The reason was because air was getting into the system from around the unsealed internal pipe - with the tank more than 1/4 full, the outlet in immersed in fuel, so no problem!

Replacing the adaptor with the correct fitting solved the problem.

Post by **valium** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:19 pm

The pipe has broken off with little resistance actually at the brass bit and the brass bit is well rounded off. It looks that I will have to buy another fuel tank at £100 which is very annoying as there doesn't seem anything else wrong with the tank.

Post by **bmcecosse** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:28 pm

You should be able to get it out with a Stillson type wrench - you could try boiling water poured on it to try to loosen it a bit!

Post by **valium** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 12:32 am

This is how I did it

take out tank and empty -take up to mother's with large garden -flush tank out with hose pipe 3 times -leave over night full of water

empty tank in morning

split the top of the offending nut with a nut splitter. Heat around the area with a blow torch (alot) - insert one of those reverse screw things and then spanner it out

saved a bit of money there!

Post by **8009STEVE** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:02 am

take out tank and empty -take up to mother's with large garden -flush tank out with hose pipe 3 times -leave over night full of water

empty tank in morning

Or put a peice of hosepipe up the exhaust of a running car with the other end in the tank. This will fill and flush the tank with an un-inflammible gas, so you can put heat of any sort, including oxy-acet, to any part of the tank.

Post by **MoggyTech** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:31 am

8009STEVE wrote:
take out tank and empty -take up to mother's with large garden -flush tank out with hose pipe 3 times -leave over night full of water

empty tank in morning
Or put a peice of hosepipe up the exhaust of a running car with the other end in the tank. This will fill and flush the tank with an un-inflammible gas, so you can put heat of any sort, including oxy-acet, to any part of the tank.

Just to clarify, it has to be ANOTHER car, and not the one the fuel tank belongs to.

Post by **8009STEVE** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 6:02 pm

OOPPS Sorry I didnt make that clear

Post by **bmcecosse** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 7:16 pm

Still sounds dangerous to me - how do you KNOW all the fumes have been expelled? The only time I have welded a fuel tank I followed the water example above - even then - I carefully played the torch at the entrance of the tank (with some trepidation!) and there was a slight 'pop'.

Post by **Velocemitch** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 1:41 pm

Just dragging this one up for some advice. The pipe snapped off my outlet and the brass nut just disintegrated on me when I tried to undo it. After struggling with it for a while I gave up and left it a few months, to see if it miraculously fell out on it's own... it didn't

This morning I tried drilling out the brass collar to see if I could loosen it all by effectively drilling away the brass threads, it still won't come out even though I can now see the steel threads in some places.

So what now???, new tank.. or can I run a tap into the thread and tap out the remains of the brass?, if so what thread is it?.

I haven't tried any heat at all, there is still a faint whiff of petrol if I put my nose into the sender hole, though I did see the odd spark whilst I was butchering things and I still have eyebrows, so there can't be much in there anymore.

Post by **rayofleamington** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 3:27 pm

There's still plenty of Minors getting scrapped, so a second hand tank might be worth going for if you're on a tight budget, but make sure it's not got the same problem!
That might be less hassle that trying to re-tap.

I had hassles with the tank connection on my 71 pick up - just in time to be late for the LEO this year. The previous bodger had used the wrong type of ferrule which had become dislodged when I was rebuilding the chassis (had to move the fuel tank). The ferrule had not been sitting square and had got distorted badly so how it ever worked I have no idea! Whatever I tried it would suck more air than fuel

In the end I hand made a brass ring and soldered it to the fuel pipe (using a household plumbing blow torch), filed the sealing face square and flat and that worked fine.
The flats on the pipe nut were badly worn so I filed it to fit a slightly smaller spanner.

Post by **bmcecosse** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:23 pm

Veloce - can you not just pick the remains out with 'dentist' type picks ?

Post by **Velocemitch** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 5:02 pm

bmcecosse wrote:Veloce - can you not just pick the remains out with 'dentist' type picks ?

Doubt it, it looks really well locked in. I've got my Eyes on a tank on ebay, so if the outlet ferrule is OK it looks like it's going to be easier than messing any more. It's a shame to loose what should be a good piece of the car for such a daft reason though.