Hilux 4x4

 

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Simon's Fuel tank repairs - Simon Morris

Wife come running, "darling there is petrol all over the garage floor, the fuel tank is leaking petrol" My reply oh heck more money to spend on the Hilux

Well this evening I removed the fuel tank, this is how you must go about the process.

1. Disconnect the battery, if you have a dual system disconnect them as well.
2. Get out your jerry cans
3. Syfon out as much of the petrol from the tank as possible
4. Now you will see six 12mm head spanner bolts at the front and six 12mm headed bolts at the rear, remove the front three bolt and then the bottom three at the rear, you can then remove the rock guard, be careful that it does not fall on you when you loosen the last bolt off.
5. You will now see three bolts in front and three at the rear, just loosen these bolts off, but do not remove them yet.
6. Now loosen off the hose clamp on the main filler fuel pipe, next to this pipe you will see a thinner pipe as well, loosen it off as well.
7. On top of the tank, you will see an additional three pipes, the one on its own is the breather pipe and then you will see two other pipes, loosen off all these pipes.
8. Now remove the two electrical wires that are going to the fuel gauge.
9. Once you are satisfied that there are no more pipes attached, some cases you might have a link up to an extra tank.
10. Use a suitable bolt and push it slightly into the open end of the various pipes, this will prevent dirt and debris from contamination the interior of the pipes.

Wear some safety glasses while working under your vehicle, depending on your Mods on your Hilux, you might have to lift the vehicle with a trolley Jack and place some vehicle stands safely in position under the rear axle tube on each side, I am lucky my vehicle is high enough so I do not have to lift it.

11. Now loosen off the bolts, remove them and support the tank with your friend helping you, PLEASE NOTE DO NOT USE AN ELECTRICAL OPEN GLOBE TYPE LEAD LIGHT

12. Now you can slowly lower the fuel tank to the ground, use a funnel and drain out the rest of the fuel that is in the tank also into a jerry can, make sure that you store the fuel in a suitable place that is safe.
13. Do not smoke while doing this job

On my tank I have found that there is a pin prink rust hole, will be taking it to Silverton in the morning for them to repair it.

Now how many of you are aware that the single cab and the double cab Hilux, their fuel tanks are not the same?

And to add some confusion to this subject, I have two spare fuel tanks and the one is even smaller than the one that came out of my Hilux and the other one that is sloped towards the front for the double cab Hilux application.

Well today I had the tank repaired (cost me nothing) but will give the guy some biltong just as a gesture of goodwill.

Anyway, to refit the tank, you must screw in one of the front bolts so that the front of the tank can be held in place and it will then slope to the rear, allowing you to connect up the various pipes, With the body lift on my Hilux, this was much easier to do

Thus you must make sure that the various pipes have the correct pinch clamps and that they are in the correct position, then connect up the breather pipe and then the inlet large ID fuel pipe, once you are happy that all the pipes are correct, you can now lift the other end and bolt it into place, then you must not forget the small spacer bracket at the rear bolt it on at the same time using the three bolts that came out.

Now the protection metal plate do not try and straighten it, using a hammer or such, yes it might look out of shape, but if you change the shape you will battle to re-fit it back into the correct position, you can try by using a phillips screw driver inserted into one of the other holes to move the plate into the correct position to screw in the other bolts

Do not forget to re-connect the two electrical wires onto the fuel sender unit.
Finally once you are happy that everything is correct, can you start to re-fill the fuel tank with fuel, for safety you can earth the vehicle to a ground earth, basically a copper rod is driven into the ground and then to the one end a cable is attached (jumper cables work well) and then the other end attached to some part of the chassis of your vehicle, yes most people do not worry about doing this, however whenever petrol is poured into a vehicle Static electricity can cause an explosion.

Now you can reconnect the battery

And start the vehicle, it might take a few seconds before the fuel comes through to the system.

This photo below shows the three different type shapes of fuel tanks, the one is for the double cab which is slightly different from the single cab, they are the same length, but the double cab Hilux slopes more to the front, the smaller tank shown is for an older model Hilux

Photo showing the protective plate under the fuel tank