Beware - Changing fuel tank can cause strange problems.

[gloverman]

We have a customer with a Soarer who recently had to sell his toy. It had the manual conversion done in our shop. He is a mate and did most himself. As part of the deal he had to sort the fuel gauge. I supplied another sender but there was an issue with the tank, I'm not sure what so supplied a tank. He removed the tank from one of my wreaks and gave it to the new owner.

The new owner turns out to be one of my suppliers sons. He rings and says the tank has been fitted but now the car runs like crap , won't idle and is very hard to start.

I agree to squeeze it into an already busy week. After all it can't be that hard, Can it?

Problem one - the starter just clicks. Over 200000km so a starter is a good place to start. Out it comes and it is in very poor condition but we manually check the engine - won't turn over by hand. Little strange.

Now I have been at home feeling ill but my mind starts ticking over. Some of the hardest problems are solved in the little hours of the morning when I can't sleep. Before coming home on Wednesday I noticed the engine breather tube which runs to the top of the throttle body was wet.

My instruction was remove the spark plugs and turn motor over by hand, and make sure there was no sparks around. Sure enough engine was full of petrol with two cylinders being full to the top. The recently new plugs are completely fuel soaked so will need replacement.

All this due to someone getting the feul tank hoses wrong. I'm just hoping the engine hasn't been turned over before we got with a little bit of fuel in the cylinder to hydralic it and bend a rod. It's going back together at the moment so time will tell.

Cheers.

 

[NZ_V8farmer]

dont you just love busy weeks :biglaugh:, hope my ute hasn't become to much of a thorne in the side. if ya need it i can wait an extra day to give you more time and pick it up wednesday. just give me a txt.

cheers and hope it all goes well.

 

[gloverman]

Wednesday would be better. My sparkie will continue on Monday. I can't find the spare 4 cylinder dash yet but will keep looking. Cheers

 

[NZ_V8farmer]

your dont have to get dash done if it too much of a push and is the wiring become that big of a job?

 

[gloverman]

no yours is quite simple - other jobs have been stressing me and i've been sick - had no voice at all today. cheers

 

[gloverman]

ok got the Soarer started again today. Started on 6 maybe 7 cylinders and stuttered to rev. Soon the revs cleared but the idle was crap. Then it began to smoke like a train when it warmed up. We drained around 15 litres of oil and petrol out of the sump. Checked all the fuel tank hoses and they looked OK. After reassembly still had petrol in breather system sometimes enough to squirt 30cm from the front breather pipe. After lots of checking we found that there is a small washer on the inside of the seal in the tank. The bango fitting has a locator hole into the tank. The washer was too thin and allowed petrol to run down through the locator hole passed the washer and down the bango bolt and through the breather system. What a pain in the backside kind of a problem. We still have a clear fuel filter in the breather line to check if petrol is in there. Car goes well and also found the rubber boot on the bottom of the charcoal canister was crimped over so sorted that as well.
When talking to the customer he commented how tough these toyota V8 engines are. When it wouldn't start they tried to tow start it. Remember it had two cylinders full of petrol so both back tyres would have been locked up sliding down the road.
I drove it home tonight and drives OK. Will recheck tomorrow - cheers

 

[Big]

I'm feeling ya Kelvin..do a job for a "mate"then it turns to custard..hope all is well and you don't get stung..cheers

 

[Jake Breyck]

kinda reminds me of when this kid put one of the heater hoses to the pcv there for instantly filling the block with water, he ofcorse decided high speed runs and burn outs where in order right after getting the two hoses mixed up. the motor didnt last too long.