Hey, sorry I'm crunched on time, no time for the search bar. I have tomorrow only to get the gas out so I can change my pump. I've got the entire rear apart, the panhard bar and other bar below, shocks everything removed to let the rear drop. I have a FULL tank of gas and I can't seem to get the fuel out.
We tried a hose, not stiff enough, taped the hose to the antenna, but it's not long enough, it touches the fuel but it's not deep enough to pull it all out.
Fuel neck doesn't look like it separates. Can't find a plug and I need to empty it to get it out. We all know how heavy it's gunna be. I'm afraid that it will 1.) not move easy enough to move it in the angles it looks like it has to turn to come out. or 2.) it will break the filler neck off. Both ways seem way harder than taking out the fuel. Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. I've only got tomorrow to work on it or I'm lookin for a ride to and from work until NEXT weekend when I can get to it again.

 

On the passenger side of the car, over by the timing disconnect wire, there is a single connector sticking out of the loom. If you connect a wire from that to the battery's +12 volts (the red one) it will turn on the fuel pump. Now disconnect the fuel feed line in the engine compartment using 5/8" and 3/4" wrenches, and run that hose to a bucket, and drain the fuel that way.

 

Maybe I should explain first that the reason I'm taking out the tank is because the pump died.

 

Nothin??

 

if you dont mind being ghetto about it you can drill a hole in the tank making sure to get all the metal shaving out. tap the hole and putting a bolt in it. it will look like a drain plug and shoulnt hurt anything

 

Drill Hole

That (Could get interesting).

Later

 

Just make sure you have the fire dept on the phone before you start drilling.

 

Not sure how to help you with the gas problem, but for future help with the pump, I've heard of a lot of local f-body owners making a trap door in the back under the hatch directly over the tank to access the pump easily. I for one am not for cutting on my car, but it's all a matter of opinion.

 

I screwed a bunch of 2x4's together to put on my jack to help me lower the tank. Then when the new pump was in I used it to empty the tank.

 

I know Im pretty late on the response... It will take a little more time than wat ur requiring though. To drain the tank just go to any hardware store and get a fuel siphon tube. This will do the trick. To drop the tank ur gonna have to drop the whole rear suspension and exhaust system. Go to shoebox.com... He has a quicker method of getting to the pump from the top through a trap door. I promise u once u go through the trouble of "not trying to cut up the car" u will have a greater appreciation for cutting it in the first place.

 

Liquid fuel won't ignite. Vapors do.

Besides, how often do you see sparks when drilling? Never. No spsark=no ignition souce.

 

Drilling a hole will most likely set the fuel on fire. The sparks will be from the brushes in the drill making/breaking contact with the commutator.

A neighbor did it a number of years ago. He didn't realize someone put gasoline in his diesel car. When it wasn't running correctly he drilled a hole to drain what he thought was bad diesel fuel. Lost most of his garage and nearly his house.

RBob.

 

Just spend the 2 bucks for the siphon pump...

 

Why dont you have somebody help you lower the tank. If not you have to man up and lower the tank. I had to change my pump with a full tank, it was heavy, but you have to do it anyway. Good luck. And dont drill holes in gas tanks. That is just

 

Either siphon the gas out or man it up and lower the sucker. IMHO, I wouldn't recommend drilling a hole in your gas tank, I think that spells disaster.

 

I can't believe this thread went for 2 weeks before someone came up with the obvious answer.

Siphon, definitely. Done it before. I've also manhandled a 3/4 full fuel tank with brute force. The siphon is the better way. I've never bought a siphon pump, though. It's too easy to do it with commonly available materials, for free...like any length of hose small enough to fit in the filler neck.

When I was in college, I borrowed a guy's beer bong to use the hose to siphon, and I thought it was hilarious. mmmmm. This gas taste like beer.

 

Hey guys, sorry, after the day I asked and hardly anyone replied, I just went ahead and muscled it out. It was about 3/4 full. I found a way to siphon the gas out. It's not as easy as buying a line and feedin it through, there was a baffle deal on the end preventing you from puttin something through it to siphon it out. I bought a steel line (brake line type) and taped the hose to the end and fed it down the neck past the baffle and it went right in. Then I got a air operated brakeline bleeder and hooked it up for two seconds to get it to suck the gas through, then broke the line and fill up tank after tank(1 gallons,) I'll repost later with the pics. It was kind of a process. After that it was pretty straight forward.

 

I've heard of tanks having baffles that prevent getting a siphon hose in them, but I've never run into one that I couldn't get a half inch hose into. Lucky I guess. Good to see you found a solution.

 

my air drills don't have that problem..

 

So true.

RBob.

 

DOnt go through the trouble and risk of drilling... Either siphon it out or use the trap door method. It takes about and hour at the most and to cover it back up, just get a nice sheet of metal and some rivets. But if u dont wanna go that route just be careful and have plenty of patience trying to get the exhaust and suspension out of the way.

 

Agree

Drilling/ Electic, air or whatever is a stupid
thing to do, or even recommend.

Done three of these, and been able to siphon them
after playing with the hose location in the tank after
a while.

Hardest part for me was the filler tube removal and install
without screwing up the neck.

Something else to check is where the filler tube goes into the
tank and cracking. I had always had a fuel smell at the back of the car when I filled it up full. When I took the tank out of my car, it was cracked and varnished up around location.
If I remember rite, this was a recall on some of our 3rd gens way back.
I got a good deal on a new tank so went that way.
HTH.

Later

 

Look at how much room is up here.. and how much surface rust is on all of this. I heard of a way of removing it, instead of sand blasting, this other method uses small plastic beads.. Anyone ever heard of that??



Here is everything that I used really and yeah, the baffle was just simply a circle, bent in the middle to allow gas to flow in, but closed off just enough to not let anything else in.. it was pretty basic..

 

Just another blasting media ... like sand.

 

this won't help you now, sorry, but maybe it will help someone doing a search later on.

sometimes you can do like Kevin91Z said, well actually you want to have the fuel line disconnected first and in a container & then hot wire the pump.
here is a trick that may work if the pump doesn't run.
after you have the pump hot wired, with a mallet tap on the bottom of the tank about where the fuel pump is located at. most of the time it doesn't take much of a hit to jar the pump enough to get it to run one last time. if the pump does start running, don't remove power from it till you done because that may be its last time.
i do this at work to get a dead vehicle pulled in that i know has a bad pump. it works about 60~70% of the time.

 

Most of the failed pumps I have seen, don't fail to pump at all, but fail to produce enough pressure to start the engine. All but one of these failed pumps was still able to pump out the tank when working against no pressure.

 

So thats where that smell was coming from!! I've been trying to hunt that down since I changed the pump before.

 

huh?

 

I think, when he said

He was referring to

 

Yes that is wat I was referring to... Thanks

 

thats a nice dent in the bottom of that quarter, but thats why im glad to have a mechanical fuel pump

 

your quarter panels are less prone to denting if you run a mechanical fuel pump?

 

sorry that was ment to be two different comments my punctuation sucks

 

Haha that's how I read that too