| This is such a cockamamie setup. There are three
vents on the tank, none of which really belong there. However, because
the filler neck enters the tank about halfway up the passenger side, air
pockets develop when filling the tank. This causes the gas pump to
kick off about 1/2 to 3/4 of a tank. Sucks. |
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So what's a fella to do? First off, that driver's
side vent has no reason for living. It's outta here. If you're
the curious type, that's a metal press-fit axle cap (like from a kid's
wagon) sealed with JB weld. There's probably other (better) ways
to do it, but my wife won't let me weld. Damn her. |
| Time to plug some of the extraneous holes in the body.
At the local Honey-Do warehouse, they had a monster selection of rubber
and plastic caps and plugs. If you're really uncreative, you
can look at the full size image to determine size, maybe. I just kinda
winged it. |
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I did not wind up using the plugs for the passenger
side vapor line entry and the filler neck, as discussed below. |
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So, we've now plugged the driver's side vent and three
of the four (!!) holes where vapor lines come in to the body. Now
it's time to figure out how to vent the tank. As the engine draws the gas, it creates a vacuum, so there needs to be a vent to the atmosphere, but an indirect vent, so you don't get all kinds of stanky fumes. I used the small vent line on the top front of the gas tank, and connected it to the original vapor line to the engine bay. I had to do just a little bit of tweaking, nothing major at all. |
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| Of course, we still haven't done anything
about our main problem, venting the tank while filling. I had first hoped that the small vapor line described above would be sufficient, but upon further consideration, the idea of the air pressure created by a 1/2" stream of force-fed gasoline being vented by a 1/8" line (not to mention 10+ feet of hose) is ludicrous. The solution was to run the large-bore vent at the top/rear/passenger side of the tank to the filler neck. This is where the very tight 180 degree radius is. Being a cheapskate, I tried to make my own hose. Very straightforward, the only oddball thing I had to do was substitute a water fitting for the plastic fitting where the vent hose meets the filler neck; the plastic fitting is too large to go into the 5/8" fuel hose. All of this was for naught, that sucka kinked way major bigtime. Luckily, there is a part! Part Number 17235-E4101 runs from the tank to the filler neck, just like common sense would dictate! Yeah! I got it Nov 30,2002 from Courtesy Nissan, for about $30 shipped. I have not put it in as of this writing (need to burn up the full, err, half full tank of gas before dropping it to swap the hose) but I'm sure it's going to work fine. I just hope I can find that plastic fitting! |
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