capless fuel filler frozen | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

capless fuel filler frozen

stillmarried

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
104
Reaction score
14
City, State
South Dakota
Year, Model & Trim Level
2017 ExplorerLimited 3.5L
Drove the Ex about 2.5 hours in cold, about 3 degree F weather, and stopped to get gas. Could not get the gas station nozzle into the fuel tank capless fuel filler inner door. I poked and poked, trying not to break anything, finally when I gave it a good jab, apparently the scraping of my knuckle and skin on the outer rim of the outer gas door opening, (or possibly the force of the nozzle), opened the little silver door in the capless fuel filler opening. Best guess is that the small silver door was frozen since I did not observe any debris in the area.

I was thinking about what to do the next time this happens, and decided to try to put one of those plastic packets, (the ones that you squeeze to break the contents and cause a chemical reaction that you use to warm your hands), and lay the packet in the fuel entry area so that the small silver door can melt enough to get the gas station nozzle in. Any better ideas?

Now where did I put those big Band-Aids?
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





Could you just pour a little fuel antifreeze solution around the area?
 






That shouldn't be happening unless you have a bad seal and water is getting in that area. Maybe the flap is defective and not frozen. You can try and hold the nozzle against the port, squeeze the trigger and lift the hose just above the handle and some left over fuel from the last person will come out and de-ice the frozen port.
 






Carry a little can of WD40 and spray around the flap etc. They can get stuck with road debris.
 






What I would say happened is that you did not have the outer fuel door fully closed and water got inside. This should never happen. Also, if the outer door seal is bad, you will get a warning and a code.
 






I wouldn't spray anything (wd-40) other than a little lock deicer or fuel like I mentioned in my other post. Why chance contaminating your fuel port. What Halwg said is on spot.
 






I wouldn't spray anything (wd-40) other than a little lock deicer or fuel like I mentioned in my other post. Why chance contaminating your fuel port. What Halwg said is on spot.

No one said empty the can in the tank...if you spray a bit on the latch it will in no way contaminate the fuel. Here's a video on it and he also mentions a bad fuel door seal.http://youtu.be/JlK2qekqX5s
 












Drove the Ex about 2.5 hours in cold, about 3 degree F weather, and stopped to get gas. Could not get the gas station nozzle into the fuel tank capless fuel filler inner door. I poked and poked, trying not to break anything, finally when I gave it a good jab, apparently the scraping of my knuckle and skin on the outer rim of the outer gas door opening, (or possibly the force of the nozzle), opened the little silver door in the capless fuel filler opening. Best guess is that the small silver door was frozen since I did not observe any debris in the area.

I was thinking about what to do the next time this happens, and decided to try to put one of those plastic packets, (the ones that you squeeze to break the contents and cause a chemical reaction that you use to warm your hands), and lay the packet in the fuel entry area so that the small silver door can melt enough to get the gas station nozzle in. Any better ideas?

Now where did I put those big Band-Aids?
I believe this is the first post of this kind. There isn't any way that I can see that water would get in there unless it was condensation. Was it raining by any chance the last time you filled up?

Peter
 






I have found at proper placement of a warm butt solves the frozen door problem.
Best as bare assed. :eek:
 












Appreciate the feedback in helping to solve this problem! There was no rain or snow that day, so the Ex was relatively dry. The outer door was closed and secure when I went to open it. Following Jonnnyo's suggestion, I checked the outer rubber door seal, and found a small irregular rectangular hole at the 6 o'clock position on the seal, it is about an 1/8" wide by 3/16" high. Can someone confirm that this is not a typical feature on their Explorer's door seal. This is a pretty flimsy rubber seal, but my hypothesis is that condensation/moisture is getting through this small hole, and freezing up the inner door. I will do a temporary fix until I get the Explorer to the Ford dealer. I will report back if this defect in the door seal appears to be the cause of the frozen inner door.
I also did the maintenance suggestion that was in the video that Prince Valium provided.
Thank you all
 






The fuel doors are expensive. We had one replaced on a company vehicle. Make sure you get the entire thing replaced under warranty.
 






Appreciate the feedback in helping to solve this problem! There was no rain or snow that day, so the Ex was relatively dry. The outer door was closed and secure when I went to open it. Following Jonnnyo's suggestion, I checked the outer rubber door seal, and found a small irregular rectangular hole at the 6 o'clock position on the seal, it is about an 1/8" wide by 3/16" high. Can someone confirm that this is not a typical feature on their Explorer's door seal. This is a pretty flimsy rubber seal, but my hypothesis is that condensation/moisture is getting through this small hole, and freezing up the inner door. I will do a temporary fix until I get the Explorer to the Ford dealer. I will report back if this defect in the door seal appears to be the cause of the frozen inner door.
I also did the maintenance suggestion that was in the video that Prince Valium provided.
Thank you all
I have that on mine. Might be a little difficult to see in the picture that I already had on file.

Peter
 

Attachments

  • PA260354_001.JPG
    PA260354_001.JPG
    47.3 KB · Views: 1,653






The hole at the bottom may be a weep hole (to let condensate drain).

Car Washes are the likely source of water inside the fuel cap area (had one freeze on me a long time ago when we had below 0F weather).

If you are at a gas station (most likely since you are trying to put gas in), just get a yellow bottle of the Heet Antifreeze and pour it on there, liberally. Heet in the yellow bottle is pure methanol and very commonly used as a de-icer. It's use in the fuel tank is to dissolve all the liquid water and make sure it gets sent through the engine for disposal. As such, even pouring the whole bottle on the capless flap seal won't harm the fuel in the tank.
 






The hole at the bottom may be a weep hole (to let condensate drain).

Car Washes are the likely source of water inside the fuel cap area (had one freeze on me a long time ago when we had below 0F weather).

If you are at a gas station (most likely since you are trying to put gas in), just get a yellow bottle of the Heet Antifreeze and pour it on there, liberally. Heet in the yellow bottle is pure methanol and very commonly used as a de-icer. It's use in the fuel tank is to dissolve all the liquid water and make sure it gets sent through the engine for disposal. As such, even pouring the whole bottle on the capless flap seal won't harm the fuel in the tank.
Not sure if that is a good idea about the methanol. From the Manual;

Do not use:
• Diesel fuel.
• Fuels containing kerosene or paraffin.
• Fuel containing more than 15% ethanol
or E85 fuel.
Fuels containing methanol.
• Fuels containing metallic-based
additives, including manganese-based
compounds.

Peter
 






if this is your first car with the capless system - welcome to the future and embrace the suck. It's nice most of the time but not without potential major issues.

and

You might have an interesting issue on your hands. the early capless and flapper system relies an a fairly tight tolerance with the nozzle head to open up the flapper.

Not all nozzles are clean, blemish free sadly. When we had our 2012 focus we came across 2 places in town that the nozzles wouldn't work on the focus.

everywhere else was peachy - but these were odd. either 2 narrow something - one had a defined burr on the side.

with cold weather it's feasible yours wasn't froze up but rather the nozzle pipe was too cold and thus too narrow to fully open the flapper. it doesn't take much. to cause it not to function. and with a major temp difference between your gas filler and the nozzle pipe it's possible the gap was too much. there is a plastic spout for using gas cans in the back of your car (or there was in our 2016's spare tire bay). you can use this to open the flapper and put the nozzle to the spout if need be. or use a different filler.


However if there was actual ice in there I would worry a tick - but I'd put a thin coat of di-electric grease or other petroleum jelly substance on the filler cover foam/rubber padding to help with sealing in the extremes.
 






Gatzdon: thanks for mentioning Heet when you brought up the fuel anti-freeze. Darn it, SGT1411 mentioned fuel antifreeze right off, but I had never heard of such a thing. But I did see some stuff called Heet at my last Walmart visit, so I checked it out, and got some of this fuel antifreeze today.

Peterk9: If I add some Heet to unfreeze the filler door, I will fill up with the 98 octane gas so that there will not be excess level of methanol/ethanol in the tank, (I have the flex-fuel engine for E85 as well).

I will get some dielectric grease on that outer seal in the morning. :)
 






Gatzdon: thanks for mentioning Heet when you brought up the fuel anti-freeze. Darn it, SGT1411 mentioned fuel antifreeze right off, but I had never heard of such a thing. But I did see some stuff called Heet at my last Walmart visit, so I checked it out, and got some of this fuel antifreeze today.

Peterk9: If I add some Heet to unfreeze the filler door, I will fill up with the 98 octane gas so that there will not be excess level of methanol/ethanol in the tank, (I have the flex-fuel engine for E85 as well).

I will get some dielectric grease on that outer seal in the morning. :)

All that is great but it is not fixing the issue. It may be time to have that seal checked.
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





I don't see any sort of hole in the door gasket/pad on my 2016 but hind sight I didn't have good light on it. so I'll check again tonight sometime and might get a picture.


however I'll still say you shouldn't have water in that part of the filler, unless it got there during your fill up, even condensation shouldn't really collect there due to the angle, and depth in the body. It might bit again I'd doubt.

Are you sure there as ice in there and it wasn't just bound up due to being so cold. (metal contracts with temp - 3degrees is pretty damn cold in my book)

it also might have been an issue with your filler nozzle. if it doesn't happen again this winter I'd put more money on the nozzle being some how out of spec. This has happened to me twice in 3 years.
 






Back
Top