Just about an hour ago, I headed down W. 22nd Ave for my morning walk with the dog. As I passed this Dodge pickup parked at the curb, I noticed a strong smell of gasoline. I looked down and saw a good sized puddle, and a rivulet heading down the curb.
That’s not good. One spark, and this Dodge would be engulfed in flames.
I looked under it and saw it wasn’t just dripping, but one single solid stream and several drips from the bottom of the gas tank.
I asked if anyone of the folks having an event in the school parking lot drove this Dodge. Nope.
Walked across the street, where there were already several older cars parked. Knocked on the door. No answer.
I decided this was a potential hazard and called the fire department.
They arrived some 10-15 minutes later, and poured clay about to absorb the spill.
Then they went to work trying to stop the leak. Easier said than done, given how steady it was. They had some kind of tape and one guy was kneading some epoxy, presumably.
The owner eventually appeared from the house. He said something about vandalism. Umm, there’s no way someone would do that in this neighborhood. I overheard one fireman telling him it looked like there had been a previous repair that had now failed.
When I finally left, they were still working on it. I assume if they can’t stop it, they might have to have someone come and pump out the tank?
Always interesting to see specialized skills in action. I wouldn’t have thought of gas tank repair as a typical fireman skill, but obviously it is!
Today’s firefighters get trained on how to extricate people from damaged electric cars, and learn where high current wiring is routed on specific models.
With current fuel pumps in the fuel tank, pressurizing the fuel line instead of the old engine-mounted fuel pumps which created a suction, repairs to underbody fuel lines really must be done properly. Securing a jumper hose to a fitting or a fuel filter with twisted baling wire was never right, but some people persist!
“Damn, instead of that insurance check I was looking for I’m stuck with this truck.”
🙂
Somewhat oddly, it was coming right out of the bottom of the tank.
It’s common here in the Bay Area for thieves to drill a hole in the bottom of a gas tank to steal gas. Especially on trucks, with their high ground clearance.
“Welcome to the Scotty Kilmer channel!”
I have suffered a fuel leak or two in my day, but fortunately without dire consequences. The worst was when the fuel line between the sediment bulb and the carb in my Model A
broke (which some dunderhead had made out of brittle copper instead of steel). It let go in my neighborhood and was pouring out at a pretty good rate. Fortunately, Henry Ford provided a fuel shutoff valve under the dash which came in really handy that day.
Some years ago, I followed a car up to a red light that was dumping fuel at a prodigious rate. Signal the driver rolled down the side window and informed them he was leaking fuel “big time.”
The driver just responded, “I know,” then continued on his merry way. I dropped my speed and created a larger gap with said leaking car.
Not a fuel leak but I had a similar experience with a Sprinter workvan that was billowing smoke in traffic 2 years ago, I was right beside it at a light and could actually see flames in the wheelwell, presumably either the brakes or exhaust caught some debris on fire, I yelled the driver “your on fire!” and he indeed reciprocated with “I know” and drove on.
This happened to me a few years ago with my Crown Victoria. The fuel line ruptured right at the gas tank.
It happened on a cold winter morning, and I let the car warm up for several minutes in my driveway. Now, I don’t have a good sense of smell, and when I came outside again, I thought I smelled exhaust, which was a little odd. Little did I know that several gallons of gas had already spilled onto the driveway. Well, I just drove off.
At one point, the car sputtered, so I suspected something was going on, but I didn’t know what. And I had to get to work, so I got onto the highway. A few minutes later, I noticed the gas gauge read about 1/4 — and I just filled it up the day before. Well, that’s when I put the pieces together and figured I had a gas leak. Since the car was running, I drove (in the right-hand lane) until I got to an exit. Fortunately, I just barely made it, and ran out of gas shortly after I got off. At that point, I was losing gas so quickly, that I could actually see the gauge move downward… not a good feeling!
Somewhere between home and where I broke down, I had dumped 20 gallons of gas on my driveway and on the roads. I had the car towed to my mechanic and he replaced the fuel line. I’m glad I drove it until the tank emptied, because otherwise it likely would have been a fire department matter. I call it the day my Crown Vic tried to kill me.
Incidentally, my wife said that when she walked out of the house that morning, she was overcome by fumes. Did I mention that I have a poor sense of smell? She couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed it. Our driveway smelled like gasoline for weeks afterward.
Probably harder to get lit than you think but dangerous all the same, Ive reapaired a few fuel tanks in situ with a two pak goo that sets underwater or any liquid and never had to redo the repair its permanent, we used a similar stuff inside the exhaust condensors under steam turbines to do fast repairs to erroded steel and those would last several months of constant pounding of water untill the next brushgear overhaul and enough time for welding
Sometimes the leak is a design defect like our ’73 Le Mans (Colonnade) wagon. The gas tank was in the left rear wheel well and the seam ran all around the top, sides and bottom. So any water in the fuel would sink to the entire length of the bottom seam and rust would eventually eat thru the terneplate. Which it did.
One day we found we had gas dripping pretty heavily out the bottom, but I was able to drain it and take it to an old school radiator shop where they purged and resoldered it, good as new.
I’m assuming all the intermediate sized versions of that series would have the same problem..Chevelle, Olds Cutlass and Buick Century, in case someone out there is looking for a wagon to restore.
I had a 72 Chevy wagon will a similar tank that sprung a leak while I was at college. I found a note on the windshield (along with a parking ticket) one morning. Drove 250 miles miles home, got a new tank at the local Chevy dealer and spent a pleasant few hours changing it. Did I mention it was in the middle of a New York winter? I also had to buy an extra deep 9/16″ socket in 1/2″ drive because my 3/8″ set was not deep enough. Good times.
One of the many minor issues which led our ownership of a 1981 BMW 528i to be short lived was a fuel leak at the line exiting the tank. To cut a long story short, it was indicative of several mistakes made by a well-known independent BMW shop in my then hometown. Fortunately I was able to easily add the missing hose clamp. I let the shop pull the inline filter that had been installed (sans hose lamp) with the flow arrow pointing toward the tank. My 1975 Alfetta broke a high pressure line between the injector pump and the intake manifold. Let’s just say that a fire extinguisher came in handy before too much damage was done, beyond a melted distributor cap and spark plug wires.
Fuel leaks are never good. Once, a long time ago, I borrowed my father-in-law’s 1992 LeBaron convertible. Heading home, with the top down, I could faintly smell raw fuel. It was dark and I was tired.
Next morning, I started it up and took a peek while it was running. A rubber hose, which was precariously close to the muffler, had rotted and was leaking. So it was replaced.
There was the one time when I was driving my Galaxie back in the 1980s when the fuel tank simply fell off. That was fun.
Mmm, barbecued Ram!!!
An enduring memory from my childhood: geysers of gasoline gushing from ’60s-’70s GM cars with that completely stupid fuel fill located behind the licence plate, down under the rear bumper. Let the fuel cap be missing or faulty, and gasoline cascaded out every time the driver accelerated. It was a dumb location even without a bum or absent cap; who the hell wants to crouch down just to fill up the goddamn tank?! This is an example of why stylists sometimes need to be told “NO!” and given a whack across the snout with a rolled-up newspaper.
(GM weren’t the only ones to commit this particular offence; see also Volvo Amazon/122 wagons. But I give GM more crap about it because they did it on more models over a longer span of time)
Cars in the ‘50’s had had interesting places to hide their gas caps. Behind the license plate was popular and GM liked to hide them behind taillights. Cadillac was particularly cool.
One evening (this was around 30 years ago) I got a frantic call from my stepbrother, Chris. He was over in San Francisco at a Shell station on Lombard Street, with a fuel leak. He asked me to drive over and help him out. Then he made a puzzling request. “Bring a bar of soap.” he said.
I dug through my fix-it supplies and took with me tubes of epoxy and silicone rubber sealer, rolls of several different types of tape and, of course, the bar of soap. I drove down 101, across the Golden Gate Bridge and soon found him and his full-size Dodge van at the Shell station. “Did you bring a bar of soap?” he asked. I looked at him quizzically and handed him the soap.
We crouched down behind the van and he showed me a gash, about two inches long, in back wall of the gas tank. It had earlier dumped most of what he had pumped in and was still dribbling gas. He took the bar of soap and rubbed it on the gash. The gasoline, when it came in contact with the soap, turned the soap into a paste-like substance. As Chris continued to rub, the gel filled in the gash in the tank and the leak stopped. He let the paste set up for a few minutes and told me what had happened.
Earlier that evening, when he was on his way to night class (he was studying to be an electronics technician), he had been rear-ended at an intersection somewhere South of Market by a big Buick sedan. The bumper on the Buick was bent, but there was little apparent damage to the van. What Chris did not see was that the impact had pushed the Dodge’s trailer hitch into the gas tank, causing a tear. Because Chris was driving around on fumes, as usual, no gas spilled at that time, and he drove off to class, oblivious to the problem. It was only later, when he tried to pump gas into the tank and it started spewing out, that he found the gash.
I asked him where he had heard about the soap trick. At the time, Chris had been an avid reader of magazines for off-road driving enthusiasts (the van had tall off-road tires, but no 4WD). One of them had published the tip on using bar soap to stop small fuel leaks.
Once the paste had hardened, Chris stuck a piece of duct tape over it for reinforcement and pumped more gas into the tank. I followed behind him as he drove home, just to be sure he made it. He drove the van around for another week before having the tank repaired.
I have no idea whether the soap trick would work on modern gas tanks. It probably wouldn’t take much pressure to break open such a repair. While current fuel-injection systems operate under pressure, I don’t think the in-tank pump used by such systems pressurizes the tank, only the line to the engine. There is often a return line bringing excess fuel back from the injectors, but I have no idea whether that would pressurize the tank in any way.
There was a ’70s era chev pickup that showed up parked on the street outside the townhouse complex where my sister used to live. I parked behind it once and noticed a strong smell of gas. In the bed of the truck was a 5 gallon gas can, a large funnel with an old t-shirt wrapped around it and a large plastic kitty litter type pan. Under the truck was a second kitty litter pan catching a steady quick drip from the gas tank. Naturally I moved my car further up the road uphill from where it was parked. This old beater was there for a number of months and was eventually equipped with even larger drip pans. It was the kind of vehicle that rained rust flecks when the doors were slammed, which explains the strainer.
I had an opportunity to watch him leave on an errand once. It was an obvious well executed routine. Gas can on the ground, stick the funnel in, t-shirt for a strainer and carefully lift and pour the contents of the pan into the gas can and then empty the can into the tank and off he went. This old truck never went anywhere quietly. The exhaust was rotted off somewhere near the gas leak and the engine was obviously down a couple of cylinders as it bucked and kicked its way up to speed. Dude was also a chain smoker and one night it lit up the sky with and orangey glow. Truck and whatever was parked behind were absolutely scorched and buddy lost his beard and eyebrows. I’m guessing he forgot about the cigarette that one time.
What’s that they said at the time? Oh yeah: WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT CIGARETTE SMOKING IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH.
Sorta reminds me of about 15 years ago my 2000 Silverado had to have the fuel pump replaced. I had it towed to my regular shop and they performed the repair. The mechanic mentioned how he was glad the tank was low on fuel, as it made it easier to R&R. The evening I retrieved repaired said truck, I filled the tank as I usually do. I let it fill until it was full and let the handle release itself. This was a 32 gallon tank, but after awhile I wondered why it hadn’t stopped; it was then that I noticed gasoline all over the ground underneath the truck. I had pumped about 40 gallons.. Dammit! Driving home I noticed gasoline would slosh out when stopping and taking off. Back to the shop the next morning, sloshing gasoline on the parking lot as I pulled up. I explained the problem, and the owner was pissed. Immediately they put it on the lift and R&R’ed the tank again. Come to find out the mechanic didn’t seat the pump in properly; it was working but not secure. Took about 30 minutes, and the I was good to go. The shop owner was still livid.
I once had a girlfriend who was very environmentally aware. She would issue me an “environmental ticket” if I threw away something that could be recycled or ran the water while I brushed my teeth. She was right, but man the guilt trip was annoying.
One morning she went out to her car and discovered the gas tank was leaking onto the street. I called a repair garage, which came out to look at it. They in turn called the state Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP showed up and promptly issued her: one environmental ticket.
I laughed long and hard about that one. And she never issued me an environmental ticket after that, no doubt because it would remind us both of her embarrassment at getting a real one.
All of which leads me to ask—did the Eugene Fire Department call the Green Police?
Almost a year ago, I thought I smelled gas around my Ranger, but I saw no puddles. Sure enough, when I carefully poked around under it, I could see the the entire top of the tank was saturated with fuel. It was probably stupid of me, but I carefully drove it to a mechanic near my office (a few miles away) with a fire extinguisher at my side and my better half following me. I think I used a quarter tank in those few miles.
It was a relatively inexpensive fix, as is usually the case with the Ranger. A plastic fitting from the fuel sending unit cracked, and it was fixed in no time. But having owned it for 20 years, I have to admit I was a little freaked out to see the bed removed from it!
As someone who lifted cars for a living that sure is a sketchy lift job and I would not want to be anywhere near that. Stacking wooden blocks is not the way to go and looks like the rubber pads on the lift points are missing.
I own a VW Vanagon Westfalia (COAL#12), and the first thing any owner tells a new owner is “CHANGE THE FUELS LINES!” Vanagons have about 22 feet of fuel hose in them, much of it circling around the engine. Engine fires turn them into a barbecue that sleeps four – not a pretty sight.
Not just round the engine either! (though you’ve probably already done this). More like a refinery than a car for plumbing, these.
Oh, yes. And therein lies a not-very-well-understood lesson: fuel hose is not all alike. The correct grade of hose for fuel-injection systems is SAE J30R9. The most common grade available at parts stores and hose specialty houses is SAE J30R7, which has a much, much lower burst pressure, much higher permeability, and is weaker in every other respect. J30R7 hose is fine for carbureted systems (though R9 is safer there, too).
Two decades ago I had a friend with a ’75 Volvo 242. His lines from the fuel distributor to the injectors got replaced—don’t know if by him or by a paid mech—with R7 hose. The car ran fine for a short time (days) and then: Car-B-Que. I was thinking of that when I was in a local branch of Green Line Hose & Fittings having some new washing machine hoses made; they had a big promotional poster listing some of their types of fuel hose, and they were promoting their “universal fuel line hose” as “suitable for all vehicles and fuels” and “meeting SAE J30R7 specifications”. I sent them a squawk about it, got back a “We’ll look into it”, heard nothing for a few weeks, called, and got “Don’t know where you got your info, but 30R7 is fine for fuel injection systems.” That’s wrong, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good job calling the fire department, not everyone would think of that. As a member I can say I’ve never dealt with that situation. All our Engines carry the putty you mentioned. It’s pretty good but a flat smooth surface working against gravity would be challenging. At that point, we would probably call out the Hazardous Materials team (hazmat). Perhaps a smaller city like Eugene does things a bit differently. Hazmat could safely empty the tank, but I don’t know their exact procedure.
When I was getting my car towed after I had the fuel leak problem I described above, I was talking to the tow truck operator about fuel leaks. He told me that the previous year he had worked a case of a minivan that had been driven over debris on the highway and developed a rapid fuel leak as a result. The driver stopped his car on the shoulder and the minivan leaked a large amount of gas out. The fire department called for the Airport Hazmat team, which responded and foamed down the van and the roadway. Seems like overkill, and the tow operator said the minivan driver was hugely embarrassed at watching the whole spectacle unfold.
The rusty midwestern ’95 F-150 4×4 I owned for a few years had dual tanks, both of which started leaking due to rust-through. Not at the same time, though! Required bed removal twice. Also had to replace a section of fuel line (as well as brake lines).
Years prior, my ’71 VW van mostly sat in the quadplex parking area after having purchased a ’64 Beetle that became my DD for six years. Came home one afternoon from work to find a huge puddle of gas under the van. After cleaning that up, some sleuthing revealed a stuck float valve in the carburetor – thankfully an easy fix. Had to drain and refill the oil (did it twice) since all the gas had run into the crankcase before spilling out.
In 06, I bought an 04 15K mile Vette from a Chevy dealer across the city. Within weeks, there was a strong gas smell. It was a cracked gas tank (no abuse from me). Took it to a Chevy dealer (on Philips Hwy in Jax) closer to me in town, and 6 months later, I still didn’t have it back, They also lost a couple of key parts during the dissection. Finally, I’d had it, and arranged for the original dealer to pick up the puzzle with a flat bed and haul it to their shop to fix. I was nice, but firm about it all – not nasty. When it arrived, someone at the first dealership had slashed the leather upholstery with a knife.
“Total Client Service”
What a nightmare!
The last time I had a fuel leak underneath near the tank, it was on a ’77 Town Car. Given that beast got 9.5 MPG, at best, driving it like your grandma, WITHOUT a fuel leak, that was the last thing I needed.
Nice looking truck and good that you called the fire department. Glad to know that vandalism was not the cause since that is always a bit worrisome. Hope the leak is sorted out soon.
At work I had a 2019 Express Cargo where someone had drilled a hole in the fuel tank and the Express had a leaking tire. So I got help mostly patching the tank and quickly repaired the tire so as little fuel would leak while in the shop. Whoever replaced the tank had to figure out what to do with about 30 gallons of fuel first, I hear they were not happy. Wasn’t too hard cleaning the floor up thankfully.
It’s my understanding that around here they don’t call someone to pump out the gas tank. They just drill a giant hole in the tank and catch the resulting outflow on the ground with the absorbent clay, which is then swept up and properly disposed of. Of course, that means that the car is inoperable and will be towed unless the owner figures out something quickly.
That sounds like a pretty likely procedure.
In 1978 my parent let me take our ’69 Buick Special station wagon to college. Although this car was only 9 years old it had some issues including so much rust that a trip down a gravel road would fill the car with a grey haze. But this was a big deal as my roomates and I were fresh out of the dorms and living off campus in Madison, WI, and this was transportation. It was great until the car developed a slow leak in the gas tank, right along the seam. This of course was far beyond our capabilities of fixing although the 2 part epoxy plugs occasionally slowed the leak. No matter how much gas you or anyone put in (and it usually wasnt much to begin with for poor college students) you never knew how much would be in there when you returned. There was a regular gas puddle on the street of our quiet residential neighborhood- I have no idea what the neighbors thought. The car was frequently full of kids on beer runs throughout the Fall and a very snowy winter and rarely had more than a gallon or two in the tank- sometimes nothing at all. There were several strandings, lots of walks to the gas station, a few ruined dates. Eventually this became too much for even very tolerant college students and the car was sent back home, the tank was never fixed, and the cars was sent to the boneyard in the Spring of 79.
…..I decided this was a potential hazard and called the fire department….
Killjoy 🙂
Would have been more fun to stop and have a smoke….carelessly.
Goll-ee, look what clumsy old me gone and done!
Speaking of killjoy: the cigarette would’ve just piffed out. Yes, really.
Actually I knew that, I was just making a joke.