Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 00:03:48 -0600
Reply-To: John Rodgers <jhrodgers@MINDSPRING.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Rodgers <jhrodgers@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject: Re: Gas tank vacuum
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You are right on about this. I had this kind of problem on my Jeep Wagoneer LTD. Vacuum on the gas tank. Couldn't figure out what was going on. Discovered in this case someone (dumb cluck) had connected a return line to the tank to a vacuum port on the intake system. Made one hell of a vacuum on the tank. So much so that it partially collapsed the tank. I kept wondering why the heck the tank would hold more gas. In time it got a permanent set in it and up set the fuel level transmitter. Had it tuned one day by local shade tree mechanic and he discovered the vacuum line problem. Fixed it, replaced the fuel tank, and was good to go.
Yup, there is enough vacuum to collapse that tank.
John Rodgers
88 GL Driver
Richard Kunkel wrote:
> We always had a big vacuum build up whenever we drove our 84 westy. The buildups stopped when a repair shop eventually cleaned the charcoal canister.
>
> For years, everytime I removed the gas cap, there was a huge inrush of air. We also noticed that whenever we would stop and idle or turn off the engine, about 10 seconds later there was a big thunk noise, like the gas tank was popping back into proper shape. There even were times when the engine would lose power or stop while otherwise running fine - as though the fuel pump just could not suck fuel because the tank had such a high vacuum. The van would start again once I would eliminate the vacuum by opening the gas cap.
>
> We lived with these symptoms for YEARS before we put it all together. Then, once we did, we had a helluva time convincing any repair shop all these things were connected.
>
> It really sucked. So to speak. We were so dumb for so long.
>
> Dick Kunkel
> rkunkel@kpbx.org
>
> Robert Donalds wrote:
>
> > Max and fellow learkers
> > this weekend I had a customer in from PA and he mentioned that he was having a problem with the gas tank accumulation a fair amount of vacuum. He would notice this when the gas cap was removed. He did not say that it was causing him to brake down or that it lowered the miles per gallon but he pointed out that there is a vacuum operated valve on the clear hose from the charcoal canister to the air filter on this 85 and that when he replaced the valve the vacuum in the tank problem stopped. I thought to myself he must have one of the only gas tanks in the country that will hold vacuum and that this is a acuum leak that would be not so easly detected
> > B. Bob
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