Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi

I am fitting a new fuel tank to my van. The new one slotted in pretty well where the old one was.
The filler pipe is hitting the entry pipe on the tank, the new tanks pipe is a little longer than the old one.
I was about to cut down the filler pipe but then noticed that the tank was nowhere near central in the van. Can anyone advise if the tank should be central or over to the left closer to the filler pipe?

Cutting the filler pipe worries me as the two pipes are spot welded at the bases, and this would mean cutting off the spot wells.
Moving the tank would be quite easy.

Regards
David

PS: I tried posting photos, (350kB) but the website is not letting me, giving me this error
ERROR
Could not upload attachment to ./files/48384_da90897e2532c037361d827831943824.

Hi

I can add pictures now - the old and the new .... Is the tank supposed to be offset to the left like this? Regards
David

If you fit a larger different shaped tank, there are bound to be some differences. I wouldn't worry about the tank not being central. After all, many cars have the fuel tank fitted on one side - the Mini does for a start. As long as the filler all lines up and doesn't leak, and the tank isn't rubbing on anything else all should be well

The original tank is offset, the larger tank the same, to enable the original filler tube to fit.

Gents

Thanks for your answers, I am trying to avoid the filler pipe coming into contact with the tank tube, which I don't think would be good - metal to metal contact surrounded by petrol vapour! I think I am going to slide the tank over an inch or two towards the middle of the car as that will avoid chopping the filler pipe or the tube on the tank.

Shame as would have been so easy to just swap tanks and not have to fiddle with anything!

Regards
David

Doesn’t really matter if you have to move it, the only thing that might occur with moving, is the rubber linking tube may not align at the proper angle, if that is the case you either live with it, if you can actually get it to join, or chop the tank outlet to get the right angle. Some manufacturers don’t seem to worry much about following the original part, this is quite prevalent with replacement panels.