Fellow fiends:
Even when in storage, my lbc leaks! This pertains to "old whitesides" ('63
B; made famous last fall on brit-cars for its bum ignition coil and my
general malaise approaching the final 5% restoration effort). The car has
been in its winter mode since Thanksgiving. Three times now I've had a fuel
leak at or about the filler neck. What gives???
The car is on jack stands but is sitting level. As per the advice of my
trusted local lbc mechanic, I've been in the habit of filling the gas tank
just prior to winter storage. The B's tank was indeed filled, up to the
filler neck in fact. Each time the leak has come from around the gas cap
and each time it is associated with a warming spell (following a cold snap)
(you get it: spells and snaps). Gas dribbles out the vent holes in the
*new* gas cap, drips on the floor and generally stinks the place up and
makes my wife (and myself) worry about garages full of fumes.
I'm not particularly keen on this and wish it would stop.
Each time when I open the filler cap there is a "glug glug" sound, a quarter
cup of gas spills on my hand, and the rest flushes back down the filler neck
into the tank. Its as if somehow gas was forced up the filler neck (where
is the preasure to do this coming from?) and subsequently forced out the
breather hole in the cap. Can all of this be coming from vapor preasure
inside the tank, induced by a "warming" spell? Why wouldn't I have seen
this during the late summer and fall (which I didn't)?
This is an early '63 B, so it is plumbed basically the same as the MGA (that
is: no vent pipe, no vapor recovery, just a single copper pipe out the side
of the tank (next to the float sensor) that in turn goes to the fuel pump).
BTW: it is a new fuel pump; not an SU, but visually similar to it. I think
the tank on this B is nearly identical to the tank on the A (held in by
straps). Of course, the gas cap is vented.
Obviously, next winter I won't fill the tank so bloody full, but did I do
something wrong in assembly? Am I going to have this problem in the summer?
Has anyone had this problem before? What about MGA owners? For the moment
I'm just posting this to MGS, but maybe someone on brit-cars has experienced
this with another car (?). Clearly, it isn't cool to have a puddle of gas
in the garage, and I'm not keen on damaging the reletively fresh paint either.
Thanks for the help,
Will Zehring
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