• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Gasoline Smell

Share this page

S

SaxMan

Darth Vader
Country flag
Offline
Every time I fill up the Sprite the garage fills up with the smell of gasoline until I burn off one or two gallons of gas. I changed the gas cap, thinking that it was a bad seal, but I'm still getting the smell. Any thoughts on this?

The obvious answer is that I have to drive around until I burn off a couple of gallons of gas "Yes, honey, I NEED to go drive the Sprite so the garage doesn't smell like gas".
 
Sounds like it's leaking around the sending unit on top of the tank. Gas can puddle in the depression.

Or - something doing with the filler neck.
 
I would look at the filler neck first - in my experience, senders get more stuck not less
 
Is there something that should (or shouldn't be) in the filler neck? Again, what is odd is once you burn off a gallon or two of gas, there is no longer any smell (Of course, with a 7 gallon tank, 1 or 2 gallons is a pretty sizable percentage)
 
Spridgets Post '68 have some sort of evaporative return lines that could have broken. That's what those plastic fittings are for inside at the top of the right side in the trunk IIRC.
 
Rubber coupling b/t filler neck and tank?

When you fill up, do you top if off so that you can see fuel in the filler neck?
 
That's what i am thinking. The rubber filler hose between the gas cap and tank may have persished. Likely at the tank. The tanks are small, so you fill it up, it sloshes, some escapes, the tank gets less full, no problem. You should be able to see all of the hose part in the boot.
 
Does your Sprite have the charcoal canister fitted? And if so, can you trace the smell from there? I dimly remember reading something ages ago that if something in the venting goes awry, the canister can suck raw fuel and soak the charcoal, leading to a gas smell until it evaporates off.
 
bthompson said:
Does your Sprite have the charcoal canister fitted? And if so, can you trace the smell from there? I dimly remember reading something ages ago that if something in the venting goes awry, the canister can suck raw fuel and soak the charcoal, leading to a gas smell until it evaporates off.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't even know where to start looking for the canister?
 
Ok. I remember the canisters from the 70s era American cars -- big old honking pieces of gear the size of a coffee can, up near the front bumper, with lines run all the way back to the tank.
 
I believe the last one hold's the carbon....I have no idea what's in the metal can.
I believe, if memory serves, that I took apart the black canister on my MGB after a clumsy, by me, attempt to desmog the car filled it with gas!

Kurt.
 
Clamps on the rubber hose that goes between the filler tube and the tank had loosened up. Cranked them back down again, and the smell was not as strong. I'm probably going to have to replace the rubber hose and/or clamps.
 
I replaced the filler tube and the smell went away for a while. The smell came back strong after my last fill up. Crawling under the car, I rechecked the hose clamps to the fuel pump and tightened down one or two that were a bit loose. It seemed like the smell was coming from the outside of the tank near where the fuel line emerges from the tank, I couldn't find any leakage, though. I'll take some pics the next time I crawl under the car.
 
Finally think I got this problem under control: I replaced one of the hose clamps on the filler tube and there was a stripped hose clamp on one of the lines from the fuel pump.
 
The gasoline smell issue has come back. Once again, it occurs only when the tank is full or near full. Once I burn off somewhere between 1 and 2 gallons, the smell disappears. It's definitely coming from the back of the car. I'm thinking I'm going to have to drop the tank over the winter and see what's going on.

On the upside, it does give me an excuse to extend my drives in the car after I've filled up "But honey, if I don't burn off the gas, the garage is going to smell like gasoline".
 
AN5Sprite said:
Sounds like it's leaking around the sending unit on top of the tank. Gas can puddle in the depression.

Or - something doing with the filler neck.
Click to expand...

I'd still place my bet here.

Tank could also be rusted through (small pinholes here and there) on the topside, if it's an original.
 
I found the O-ring sealing the sending unit on the top of the Super Beetle gas tank was completely perished causing that problem for me.
 
I was talking to a TR6 owner this evening who had a similar problem. He took his tank to a place that rubberized both the inside and the outside of the tank. It cured the leaks at a fraction of the cost of getting a new tank. Any thoughts on this? I don't know if I like the idea of the tank being rubberized on the inside. If the rubber ever deteriorated and got sucked up into the fuel pump....

Am I being overly paranoid, or is this an option worth considering?
 
Back
Top