joehelendetroit

I have a fuel leak that I just started to search for and fix. In the process, I have taken a bit of a detour.

After removing the fuel pump/filter cover I found a pair of wires with female spade connectors (appear to be one brown and one red/brown or perhaps red/green) that were taped together. There is no matching male connectors in the area. They were taped together and the tape was wet w/ gas so I removed the tape. Not so much out of wanting to see the wires, but rather I was going to replace the tape w/ new tape. After removing the tape and wiping them off, the car would no longer start. The curious thing is they have covers over the spades and they seemed to have been taped in a way that they were not connected, but rather just taped to keep them from making an electrical contact with anything.

Anyone have any idea what they were for and why the car will not run (turns over and all dash lights lite, sounds like no fuel).

Also any thoughts on the fuel leak? I had thought it was probably a loose connection on the pump or filter, but they seem fine and dry. I see a slight fuel drip out of the weep hole in the fuel tank support barcket.

nc_growler

I was just in there yesterday on my '91. No idea if your MY came with an in-tank pump (or if they were optional). But I replaced my in-tank with a strainer this time around and there were two connectors just like this for powering up that pump. They are now taped and tucked away up above my tank.

Any chance the leak is in the filler neck? If there is nothing obvious, you may end up having to drop the tank. If you do that, there's a trick for getting those straps back on. Go get an 8mm fully threaded bolt that is about 20mm longer than the originals, and pull up one of the straps with it, then bolt the other one. Back the long one out and install the other. I couldn't do it without the longer bolt. Tried for about 20 minutes. Long bolt resulted in 3 minute job.

Mrmerlin

first as has been noted the extra wires are indeed for the intank pump it has probably been deleted.

see the hose that connects to the tank if it has little male spades adjacent to the outlet then the intank pump is still in there.
What has probably happened is that you somehow grounded the hot wire for the exposed wires and thus blew the fuel pump fuse,
so replace this fuse IIRC its #42 but verify this first

joehelendetroit

Thanks for the quick help!

Having shorted the wires makes sense. I assume the pair are a power and ground (brown). When I pulled off the tape, the covers that slide over the spades were very slippery and could have easily slid back and allowed the spades to come in contact. Done for the day today, but I will check this out tomorrow AM.

Just bought an assortment of fuses for these sort of screw ups so I am hoping the answer is just a simple short from when I removed the tape.

joehelendetroit

Fuse fixed the problem. Interestingly there was an 8 amp fuse in the holder and the owners manual called for a 16. I put in a 16. It was #22.

Fuel leak still there. I am guessing that I will need to pull the tank to find it. I am guessing it has something to do with the line that goes up inside the tank support bracket. The bracket is stamped into a rib shape and the line goes up the furthest back rib on the passengers side (right side). I see some damage, i.e. dent/crack in the formed rib section and I am wondering it it had damaged the hose under it. The damage looks like something hit the support bracket rib some time ago and the crack may have a rough edge that is rubbing on the line under it.

I am sure I can find out what this line is, i.e. breather, fuel line, etc by looking thru the pet drawings and the workshop cd, but if someone wants to comment here I would welcome the time savings.

Mrmerlin

please post pictures of the damage

joehelendetroit

Here are the pic's from the damaged portion of the support bracket that protects the vent line. The crack and dent in the bracket look much worse than the pic shows. My guess is that the vent hose was worn thru by the rough edges of the crack.

What ever the actual cause of the leak, it looks like the only way to find and solve it is to remove the support bracket and probably drop the tank.

Assuming that my guess is right, could I just some how support the tank (empty of course), remove the bracket, clean up the crack, and then replace the hose w/o actually dropping the tank??

jpitman2

An empty tank will mostly stay in place when you drop the support frame, held in by the bolt at the filler neck, and the return line hose on top. Suggest you support tank underneath with something to prevent stressing anything. Also would check that the seal at the gauge head in the top (accessible under round black cover in the rear deck floor) is OK - probably worth replacing anyway WYAIT. The heavy hose in your pic (left side) is the main delivery pressure line, so I would check that carefully! As usual, keep an extinguisher handy, and work outdoors if possible. If you havent dropped the support yet, how do you know its the vent line thats leaking? There is no vent from underneath, its on the side of the filler neck, connects to a vapour tank high under the guard.
jp 83 Euro S AT 53k BTDT.

joehelendetroit

jpitman, thanks for the note. It makes sense that a vent line would not come in at the bottom. I have not removed anything yet and was just staring at the PET drawing and for whatever reason I came to the conclusion that the line under the support bracket was a vent line. Thanks for the heads up. I will have to go back to staring at the drawing some more.

jpitman2

I replaced all the hoses that were not NLA a couple of years ago, fortunately all the pressure ones were available. Also, check the short hose at the return entry on top - mine just easily pulled off the steel line, so i replaced it with new hose and jubilee clip. You will need rear end failrly high to allow the tank out backwards. Go very carefully trying to remove the in-tank pump or filter - if the threads are seized you can spin the insert and then you are in trouble. If replce the filter, use antiseize, only tighten enough to stop it leaking. Tank out enables very thorough cleaning of the insides with water jets etc.
jp 83 Euro S AT 53k

joehelendetroit

Finally emptied the tank and removed the fuel line (filter to hard line in wheel well. See pics of fuel line...

Insulation around the line is all wet w/ gas, but can not really test to see if line is leaking. I am taking it to a local shop to see if they can duplicate.

There is lots of crude inside the tank support strap that this line passes thru. I will be cleaning it all up, but the tank itself looks ok in that area.