A gallon of gasoline spilled on the floor and the tech, a stray spark,
a nearly full fuel tank in the middle of the fire, the car is on the
hoist and unmovable. This is my biggest fear as a shop owner. I would
like to spend some time discussing the problem, highlight some of the
things I have found we can do to cut the odds of it happening, and
share some info.
The problem; at one
time, not so long ago, pulling a fuel tank was not that common a job,
then they started putting the fuel pump in the tank. You know the rest;
I don’t think it would be that uncommon for a three-man shop to pull
three tanks a week. Three a week, 156 a year, 1000 every 6.4 years,
suddenly one chance in a thousand is not so comforting.
Gasoline does not burn, the vapors do, what better way to stir up some
vapors then wrestle a fully loaded tank out, a little splish, a little
splash, now the gun is cocked and loaded, all we need is a spark. We
had a shop in town that nearly burned down several years ago, they were
pulling a tank on one of those T-Birds that has the tank straddling the
driveshaft, some fuel sloshed out, not sure what ignited the fumes,
perhaps a light switch, maybe a pilot light. They were lucky, they got
a big fireball, and every one ran out the door, the last fellow shut
the door and the flames went out due to lack of oxygen. I’ve heard of
reports that three shops burnt down in the Indianapolis area, my friend
reports four within twenty miles of his front door, another associate
reports losing a neighboring shop this past winter. I think our fears
are justified.
Risk factors; some things that I believe make this job much more
dangerous then it needs to be. Working with a full fuel tank, not
having a good gas caddy to transfer fuel with, not having a hoist, not
having a good jack with a adaptor designed to safely support the tank
while removing it, using a trouble light with a incandescent bulb, if
your still using one of these trouble lights just throw it away, and of
course someone in the next bay that is involved in what he is doing and
not what you are
doing.
How about that full tank? Let’s empty it before we pull it, feel
dealing with a empty tank will do much to improve our odds. Trouble is
how do you empty it? We always used to do the best we could, which was
not very good. About 8 years ago we got a nice gas caddy, seems this
was about the same time they started to add roll over valves in the
fill neck, since then we had pretty much given up on getting a suction
tube down the fill neck. GM DID supply detailed information on every
model to drain the tank; we just had not bothered to look for it. On
some vehicles you pull a vent tube and run the suction tube down that
way, others you pull a evaporative emissions grommet, quite a few call
you to slip the evacuation hose down the fill tube, I tried that on a
95 Cavalier in the shop and to my surprise the hose dropped right in.
Fords give detailed info and even Chrysler does a pretty good job of
giving the information to drain the tank.
Where do we get this information? Yup, that is a problem isn’t it? Not
many of us can afford the factory information on every vehicle we work
on. We have Mitchell here in our shop and they often do not pass the
information along, just sort of ends up on the cutting room floor, good
news is they have committed to including it on all makes starting with
the fourth quarter. I have been trying out All-Data the past couple
weeks, looks like they do a good job of including the factory
information on tank draining and removal. A pat on the back for those
boys, and bravo to Mitchell for committing to add it fourth quarter. I
would love to see a company put out a book dealing with fuel pumps,
fuel tanks, and nothing else, sort of patterned on those Auto-Data
timing belt books that are so handy, this would put the information
within easy reach of everyone. The important point I want to make is in
most cases the information is out there, for to long we didn’t look for
it, we just pulled the tank full or used dangerous methods to empty it.
If you are going to pull a tank, LOOK FOR THE INFORMATION! We have been
and in most cases it makes the job much safer and easier.
Is all the factory information good? I don’t think so, I looked through
some different makes in All-Data, 2001 Subaru Imprezza 2.5, pull the
rear seat, pull the sender and then they have a picture of one of those
little plastic siphons with the squeeze bulb like you get with kerosene
heaters to transfer the gasoline to what looks like a open five gallon
bucket. Toyota seemed to drop the ball on some models, maybe Toyota’s
problem, maybe All-Data’s.
Lots of Chrysler’s use a drain plug, I have concerns about drain plugs,
drain plugs mean funnels, pretty good chance of spilling when using a
funnel and even if you don’t spill for sure we are going to stir up
some fumes when we drop it into the funnel.
Wanna really get some excitement drop a full tank off the tranny jack.
We did it here once. Let me tell a story a good friend told me. He was
putting a , don’t rile up the gas anymore then you have to. Avoid spilling.
6. Think about how neat it would be to have a fuel evacuation port standard on every new car built.
About the author
make your life easier at http://www.justautoparts.ca/
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