I once had a guy come in that drove to Telluride quite often. His car would run fine and suddenly quit. He would pull over and the thing would restart immediately. Periodically, it would quit again. He had the fuel injection (mechanical setup) redone, the lines blown out, filters and pump changed, etc. I worked on the danged thing for several hours on a couple of occasions. Finally, we decided to pull the tank. There was a shop towel in the tank that wandered around and sometimes covered the pickup...and fell off when the pump quit sucking. Not the same problem as yours but it was a good challenge.
Had to wave the white flag and call AAA. Only so much I can do while I am supposed to be working. Damn! This weekend I will drain the tank and hopefully find Marylin Monroe's panties!
Good point. I do it all the time, but i have a homemade tank using an old Propane tank. It has about an inch of crap in there today. I checkd before. Lol. I plan on getting it sealed inside, or buy moon style new one.
I always like to try the simple things first to fix a problem. In your case since it seems to happen when you fill the tank my first question would be are you always filling the tank at the same gas station? If the answer is yes then I would start with a few cans of dry gas just to make sure the problem in not water in the gas which is very common at many gas stations. I sold an old Camaro about one years ago and the guy who purchased the car called after he drove it home and said it had a miss in the engine. I asked him if the car drove fine on the way home and he said yes it ran great. Next question I asked was did you put any gas in the car and the answer was yes I topped off the tank. I told him to had a few cans of dry gas and he called back and said the miss is gone!!! Always start with the inexpensive things first then move onto the other things. In you case I must admit I am also thinking about crap in the tank. Hope that helps. Jimbo
I had a Ford PU with a similar problem. I had an old rag deteriorating in the tank when I finally removed the tank for cleaning. How it got there, I haven't a clue, but bits of the rotten cloth would clog the lines and filter after I filled up.
Well here's an update. Today I dropped and drained the tank. It was surpprisingly clean inside showing just a small amount of very fine sediment, which would lead me to believe it had been recently replaced or cleaned. The sock/filter was still intact and in pretty good shape.<O <O I did find a large glob of solder in the tank as well as these two guys...<O <O></O> <O></O> <O This weekend I will blow all the fuel lines out since there is probably fur somewhere in them.<O <O Hopefully that was my problem.<O
I heard of a mouse motor, not a MICE motor. "Flush to the tank" was the one of the first ideas. We all have our own learning curves.
Thats freakin awesome. Lol, now you have a cool car story with pics. Great stuff. Maybe they were a couple, who snuck in when empty, planning on starting a family. Lol.
Well I had a receipt from the PO for a new tank installation plus fuel system rebuild being done when the engine was rebuilt 2000 miles ago. When I dropped the tank and saw an inventory number written on it with a greas pen I assumed it was a salvaged unit which would explain how the mice got in, but I figured if someone went to the trouble of doing all that work they would have checked the tank for rodents before installing. They might have been stuck to the surface in an out of sight area in the tank. Who knows. Learning curve I guess.
M-I-C-K-E-Y........M-O-U-S-E Annette Funicello RIP. Glad to you hear you're gonna be up and cruisin'.
It NEVER builds pressure in a gas tank when it is running as it isn't possible. The fuel pump creates a vacuum on the tank when the engine is running and you have one of two issues. As the others said it is quite possible that you have a cap that isn't venting due to being either plugged up or being a non vented cap. The other is that as several mentioned when you fill the tank you stir the crud in the tank up and it plugs up the sock on the end of the pickup tube. Since you said that there is no air movement when you open the cap (air rushing into replace the vacuum created by the fuel pump) the probably thing is that the sock on the pickup is plugging up with stirred up crud. I've pulled paper towels, shop rags and what not out of tanks that someone stuck in the filler neck at one time and the tank on my 51 Merc had the neck of a Ketchup bottle among other crap in it. The only time you get pressure built up in a tank is when the vehicle is sitting on a hot day and the gas heats up and expands creating pressure in the tank. When you blow back from the tank make sure that you have the cap off the tank. You most likely will hear a big pop when the sock blows off the pickup tube if there is one on it.
You obviously are purchasing the wrong brand of fuel. With mice in the tank, you should be using ESSO fuel Jon.
I think installing a fuel pressure gage or low pressure light at the carb would shorten the game. http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/41373/10002/-1?parentProductId=1321858 http://www.cartalk.com/content/wheel-misfortune-2
Well it looks like I will also be replacing my fuel pump as it seems to only work sporadically. I opened it up and found one of the diaphrams rattling aroun loosely inside. I tapped it back into it's boss and reinstalled it. It worked momentarily then was not pumping fuel again. Things like this make problems very hard to diagnose, nonetheless those mice in my tank would have eventually caused some problems.
In a friends roadster the tank was cleaned and sealed, the sealer disconnected from the tank and would act like a big balloon and at times would get sucked up into the fuel pump. took months to figure it out. dropping the tank you could not tell the sealer had disconnected until it was empty and a stick was scrapped on the bottom of the tank then you could see it move. maybe look at that. I thought the fact that it was a mouse house would have been the answer. good luck
Well I think the fuel problems are now solved as I have put on a few hundred miles without anymore problems. Thanks for the help. After going through the receipts the previous owner gave me it was frustrating to see all of the problems and money he spent having his shop try and diagnose this problem when they were the ones that installed the used tank with mice in it. He had paid for multiple fuel pump changes, carb rebuilds, fuel filters, fuel pickups and tows not to mention the hassle it caused when the car would not start for him. This was a VERY reputable local shop that only specializes in classic cars and charges a premium. Everything I have heard about them was good up until this. For anyone in the area you might know them. I will not state the name of the company, but the initials ar M.M.
Absolutely DO NOT use one of these - it's an accident waiting to happen - unless of course you want your car to burn to the ground....
I'm starting to think so. Sad part is this car came with $6k worth of receipts for work they did over the last 10 years. Hopefully they were a little more thorough on the other areas they repaired. At least the engine and trans work was farmed out through them to specialists.
..um, yeah-NO. It's not a chain store. Classic car specialists that usually have VERY high end builds in the shop when I drive by.
Had a similar problem a while ago, after a lot of searching we found the inner rubber layer of the fuel hose was effected by bad fuel and had started to de-laminate and restrict the fuel flow. Like most of these problems it just takes a methodical approach and work from one end to the other til you find the cause, very frustrating though.
On the old cars there was a screen that kept crud out of the carb. It is located on the carb where the fuel goes in. Might want to check that.. If you have good filter/s than an old fuel pump could be going bad. I would check the carb inlet first.
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