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

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