Gas tank leaking

[black5litre]

Hey all.

New to the board. Hope you can help me out.

My 1994 4.0 Explorer sport has a gas tank leak. How difficult is it to change tanks and is it a costly repair?

 

[general x]

wecome to the board ^^ on my explorer (4x4) my tank is surrounded by skid plates and seems difficult to remove, i dont know about your sport thou. id pick up a haynes manuel and wait around. someones boud to have your answer

 

[DeRocha]

It can be a pita to drop the tank, but once you've done it a few times it is no big deal (The biggest pain is pumping out the Fuel to make it easier to manage). Do you know for sure your tank is leaking and not a fuel line? My '93 has a plastic tank and cannot rust out. Anyway new tanks can be expensive.

 

[performancenut]

See if you can more carefully pinpoint where the leak is from. The filler tube connection as well as line connections (as mentioned above) can be the culprit. Maybe you can fix it without automatically dropping the tank.

 

[black5litre]

From what I can tell it is coming from the Drivers side somewhere above the skid plate.

Any thoughts?

 

[DeRocha]

How much fuel is leaking in terms of volume? Does the leaking occur all the time or occassonally? Does it stop leaking if you run under 1/4 tank? Does it leak with the engine off or only when it is running?

Do you plan on doing the repairs yourself or having a repair shop take care of it? In any regard the tank will need to be drained and dropped to fix the problem. Depending on what is leaking the fuel pump and sending unit may need to be removed.

 

[black5litre]

Well it leaks while running and after the first 10 minutes of shut off. Probably 1/4 cup at a time.

I don't notice it leaking as much when there is an 1/8th of a tank or less. Anything over that seems to leak.

I will probably get someone else to tackle this but I'd like to know before I go in where its leaking from.

Any other thoughts?

 

[DeRocha]

Your fuel tank is fine, it must be a fuel line (probably part of the fuel pump sending unit). I say this because you indicate the leaking stops 10+ minutes or so after you shut the engine down. If the tank had a hole, it would leak continually and wouldn't stop. The fuel line on top of the engine is pressurized by the fuel pump. As such the fuel will leak out of the line until the line is empty and the pressure relieved. The fuel lines going to and from the engine are most likely ok since they are stainless steel (they are the lines with the green band in the pic below). The 1 line which is rusted is to the vapor canister.

 

[black5litre]

Cool. thanks for thephotos.