This is the wierdest thing that i've seen in a while, and kinda cool. A couple of weeks ago, i dropped my tank to replace the fuel strainer. when i put it back in and went to fill my car up, I some how managed to pump 17.7 gallons of gas into my car without spilling it every where. Its funny, cause there was about 1/3 of a gallon in it before i went to fill up, plus about a gallon i added from home just to make sure i make it to the gas station 5 miles away. well, i guess that would make it about 19 gallons then. Hmmmm....... and i thought i had a 15 gallon tank, or something like that. All i know is, when i took the tank out, i bent the filler neck slightly to get it out easier. Also, when i filled it up, i noticed some gas came out of the roll-over valve (i think thats what it is) when i turned my car to back in my drive way.

Any one have a clue? I sure don't see how i got an extra 4 gallons just from taking out the tank, bending the neck, bending the neck back, and putting the tank back in. Confuses the hell out of me.

sounds to me like the gas station you went to jipped ya.........couple were cought here in mi doing the same thing.

if you've ever been up in the area where the tank is, you can't put a much bigger tank in there. 4 gallons is alot.

But the thing is, i filled it up past 15 gallons at a different gas station a bit later, and this has never happened before.

I ran mine empty a few years back and it took 16.1 to fill it. Sounds like that station needs to have it's pumps calibrated.

ALL 3rd Gen cars have ONLY A 15.5 Gal TANK. Except some very RARE 1LE cars with the larger racing gas tank. I will say again
15.5 GALS

If the punps are not right, or you suspect it.
Here is a idea. get gas container, something like the 2 gallon one at walmart. go to the gas station and pump the 2 gallons.

If it is not full when done then take it in to the clerk and show them, or show the local police.

Gas prices are high enough, we should at least get what we pay for. It sounds like you got ripped off.

Just my .02 cents.

Yes, gas pumps are ridiculously inaccurate. I've added nearly 16 galllons to the tank a few times and i wasn't even remotely having low fuel level probs. Another time i was definitely out of gas (only time i ever ran it that low) to the point that i could see my fuel pressure drop when it sloshed from the pick-up...and i only added 15 and some change.

Don't they have gov't inspectors making random checks at gas stations to check the accuracy of the pump dials ?

Its only checked at 5 and 10 gallons. Theres a tolerance too, I think it has to be within 2%. There were some stations a couple years ago got busted, between 0-5, 5-10, and 10+ it would read inaccurately due to a reprogrammed chip. At 5 and 10 it read dead on.

An average station around here sells about 3000 gal/day. Dont put it past them.

YES some how i put 14+ gallons in my car last night when i was at a little less then 1/4 tank. i was thinking man those last 20 miles must just pull the gas gauge down... maybe the gas stations are getting the better of us?


my gauge is a little weird. i can go about 70 miles and it wont budge off the full line. then from 70 to 100 miles it goesn near 1/2 tank... then just drops pretty steady from there... i think that was the lowest i have ever had my car on gas. i usally fill it up at about 1/2 b\c i figure its just as easy to keep the top half full as it is the bottom half. and it cost 7 bucks instead of 16 or so.... ds

Do you guys really trust the GM gas gauge? Geez how gullible are you guys? But the real reason the gauge never reads right is because the shape of the tank and the gauge is linear.
As for the pumps they all say when the last time the department of weights and measures came through and checked them.
If by some miracle that you put 19 gallons into one of our cars then yes i would make a trip down to the Sheriffs department and have them find the department of wieghts and measures or contact them myself.

No, no, that last post is the only one that says anything about the gas guage. I think about 1/2 on the guage means around 1/3 in the tank. 'Supposedly' the carbed cars will hold a little bit more and the rated capacity isn't usually clear up into the filler tube. Just before this winter I ran mine down really low(with a gas can in the back in case I ran out), so that I could park it for the winter. It took 15.6 and it was still running. 17-19 gallon has to be a calibration error of some kind, or you were spilling a bunch, or the pump didn't reset after somebody just got a couple of gallons.

what the hell, how come i have never been able to get more then 12.5 gallons in my car at one time? my car was on E for about ten miles, it hardly budged and i pumped 12.5 gallons into my car. it seems that my tank only has a 13 gallon capacity? are you for sure that they all have 15.5 gallon tanks?

running you tank dry for storage is bad, it allows condesation to form and rot you tanks.....fill it up and add sta-bil. Gas won't rot the tank...a duh...gas tank.

The most I've ever put in my car is 13 gallons. I'd report that gas station that let you fill up 17 gallons, you probably got ripped off.

yeah.... just like winterizing a boat, you want the gas tank as full as it can be. you dont want condensation built up in there. as in cob webs.

As far as the "accuracy" of the gauge in a camaro, the owners manual in mine states that the gas gauge reads correctly while the engine is "under load", meaning that you have to be moving for it to read correctly.

yeah, I have never put more than 12.5 gallons in my tank either. And this sucker was on E. Even when I gunned it it wouldn't move off of E.

I might have got ripped off, but then i must have been ripped off at a couple of other gas stations then. I've never had any problems with the gas stations before, and i always go to the same two, sometimes three. also, i ended going almost an extra 30 miles on the tank than what i normally go. i normally just run it until two marks below the 1/4 mark and fill it up, and thats what i did after i ran the "19" to near empty, and it still filled up over 17, at another gas station. well, i'm gonna try it again, and if it does it again, then either these gas stations got something goin on, or i somehow defied the laws of physics by bending my filler neck.

Having worked for the Department of Weights and Measurement Standards in the past,..... I can say thati I have never came across a single pump that was ever off enough to complain about ......"I'm talkng MAYBE a shot glass"



BUT Thats Here in southern Califorina

but who knows it easly could happen

BTW we were required to check each station twice a year

I can attest to the inaccuracy of the gm guages. In my gta, the gas guage always gets my hopes up a lot when it takes 50-60 miles for the first light bar on the gas guage to turn off and before you know it 12mpg reality slaps me in the face and the guage falls to 1/4 tank level pretty fast.

I had a GM tech manual somewhere (back home in NJ) that had all the capacites of camaro/firebird gas tanks. I rember the largest PRODUCTION gas tank was 16.8 US GAL the smallest was 14.6 US GAL all tanks after a petecular year (I think it was 86 or 87) were 15.5 gal. there was spical cop camaros with 25 US GAL tanks (where they put the extra gas who knows) but anways my 84 camaro bone dry takes 16.1 US GAL on a AAFES (US GOV) pump even though when it gets to E it only takes 11 or 12 US GAL (damn GM sending units- why coudent they use a variable sending unit). hope that clears some things up.

I'd like to know how much gas is in the tank when the car dies from lack of fuel.
I've had my car run out of gas at the shop when they adjusted the my rebuilt carb. They put in 1 gallon, I drove to the gas station and put in 10 gallons and it started to spill out.
I have never gotten more than 11.5 gallons in my tank before it starts to over flow. Am I like carrying 4 gallons of gas that is never going to get used or something? Seems like a waste, since that is extra weight that I am lugging around.

I ran the tank really low so I could put in some fresh gas for storage--the fuel in it was already a month old. Zepher, it sounds like your fuel pick-up in the tank fell off. Ignore the fuel guage when testing how much gas the tank will hold. On E mine takes about 12 gallons to fill--most every car has a 'reserve' when it hits E.

You stole the words right out of my mouth

Does anyone have a picture of an LG4 fuel pickup?
I don't have an in-tank fuel pump since my car was carbed with an engine block mech pump.

1LE gas tank is 18 gallons...

Supposedly.....

What was the temperature when you filled? Gasoline pumps are rated at a standard temperature (in Canada the Standard Temperature is 15*C). It should be listed on the pump.

At a temperature colder than the Standard Temp, if you were to fill a 1 gallon container, you'd fill it with more than 1 gallon due to contraction caused by the cold. Conversely, if the temperature is warmer than the Standard Temp and tried to fill a 1 gallon container, it would take less than 1 gallon due to expansion.

And yes, during extremely cold winter weather, I have filled my gas tank (on a variety of cars) to levels that exceed the tanks rated capacity, while I have never done that during the summer.

First time i filled it up, it was about 60 degrees, and the other times, about the same, except one was about 40 degrees. I don't know, all's i know is, if i keep getting over 16-17 gallons every time i fill up, then thats perfectly fine, except when it constantly spills out on turning and hard accellerating and braking. do you guys think its possible i have the "1LE tank with 18 gallons"? i mean, it's a 91 formula 305, but i still don't understand how, if the pumps weren't wrong, how i ran it to where it cut off on me once, and i still put in 14.4 gallons (i remember that day well, almost didn't make it to the station) in the tank, but then when i change the strainer, i get 3-4 extra gallons some how? Hmmmm..... s**t that makes ya ponder. oh well, i'll live with my "19 gallon" 15.5 gallon tank.

Forgot to mention, I have the old style 3rd gen guage, the same size as the speedo. It lists 0-16 gallons(also liters) right on the guage. Maybe they had a few extra 1LE tanks the day they made your car. Or it was a friday and the guy grabbed the wrong tank when it was built.

The Turbo Trans Ams came with the 1LE gas tank...

18 gallons. Some of our cars came with the 1LE driveshaft.
Why not the gas tank, too?