The bus stinks of petrol. So I read the thread here about it, ordered the parts and set to it this afternoon. It hasn't gone well Can anyone tell me, do I just cut off the same length as was on there before?
If you have a metal pipe, as shown in my pictures below, the replacement piece is short as shown. The replacement piece fits, with difficulty. I ended up slicing the end of the new pipe to match the old pipe as shown in the photo to enable the pipes to match up and join. You may not need to do this. Good luck.
I do have the metal pipe like yours. I'm also having to do it on the road, as we live in a flat and have no driveway. Which means that I can't drop the engine, and I'm having to do it through the gap made by loosening the firewall. I'm not having fun
You have my sympathy. I can't remember if the internal diameter of the long replacement pipe you have is the same as the correct shorter pipe, worthwhile checking. I've been told it is doable through the paint lid and the firewall.
I certainly hope so, otherwise she's not going anywhere! But it's a pig of a job, and made harder by the fact that the longer it takes, the darker it gets.
Next time buy some 12 volt LED strip and put it up in the engine bay with a light switch.. The pipes are hard to do - but if you have a Type 4 engine and undo all the screws including the two pointing up from underneath, one each side of the "arch" the firewall will come out.. If its a Type 1 upright fan engine, then dropping it on the road by putting a jack under it, unbolting it and then lowering it onto two bits of fence post under the engine bay is quite possible, to get it out of the way a bit. Use a mobile phone in video mode with the flash on to take a video from above the tank so you can see if your efforts have the hoses and hose clamps on straight. No fun if it falls off, its worse than the original slight leak..
The engine lights are a good idea. I wasn't planning on it taking this long. Our street is on a hill, and the road slopes at the sides so dropping the engine would be a bit of a gamble.
This is the photo of the issue I found with the new straight pipe as opposed to the old bent pipe. Because of the angle, it kept on falling off the tank shaft one one side when I tried to get the other side in. I eventually sliced a small amount of my pipe to help with the angles and this enabled me to get the pipe over the tank. You may have better luck than me
Yeah, that's a good tip Chris. Cut the pipe on a slant to compensate for the bend... Forgotten about that
The problem I have is that I can't fit it to the filler neck before, because it won't go back through the paint lid hole. I had to cut the old one off before I could get it out to fit the new top end. So it's fitted to the tank, I just can't seem to get it onto the filler neck
It is a real, and I mean real pain both physically and emotionally. I've only done this once and I fitted both the filler and tank pipes to the metal pipe and then, with much swearing managed to get this in through the paint lid, twisted around trying to make sure I did not damage the filler end and then fitted this onto the tank. Be careful you make sure the filler end is oriented in the right direction so that you can fix this to the filler cap. Did I say it was a total nightmare ..but it is possible, so just persevere and good luck. The following may not make sense but here goes:- with the metal pipe connected to both the new filler end and the short tank new end, aim the short end through the paint lid and poke it towards the top right above the wheel arch. This gives you room to slowly wriggle and twist the filler end in through the paint lid and then twist it so it is pointing up the void towards the filler cap. With some judicial force the short end can be pulled and squeezed from the wheel arch end over towards the tank. This is how I managed to do it...there are probably better ways. Hope this helps.
You are most definitely both a Godsend and a certifiable genius. You shall not want for beers when we meet (or your beverages of choice). Those directions were perfect. You should stick them on a thread of their own and it should be pinned at the top! Yeah, it worked. Cheers!
^this. It’s a nightmare job even with the engine out and tank cover off. Take your time cutting the hose to shape.
With @Chrisd advice, the metal neck pipe and added rubber parts went in sweet as a nut. I had been just pushing forwards when I was taking it out, which leaves you about 5mm short of getting it out even with the top filler rubber removed. Took some moderate vandalism of the "paint tin lid" hole to get it out, so I was pretty sure it wasn't going back in the same way! Just that one piece of advice, about poking towards the top right, was the difference between it going through the hole fully assembled or not. Which was handy, as I had cut the angle on the wrong end of the pipe and had to take it back out, spin it round then put it back again Now we have zero smell of petrol coming in, even on hard cornering at roundabouts, and I can start looking at the other "little jobs" that need sorting out............... like where the hell is all that oil coming from, and why am I only getting about 10 mpg??? Expect several more cries for help in the near future!
Stick some pics up of where the oil is coming from. Most common culprit if the van hasn't been used a great deal are the rocker cover gaskets.
I'm pretty sure it's coming from the oil breather. I've got one of those horrible little pancake filter things on there, instead of a breather pipe. It looks like an oil mist is filling the engine bay when the engine is working hard, but it doesn't do it at idle. I've got a couple of pics, but was going to stick on another thread for easier reference.
If the breather’s venting into the engine compartment, everything will get covered in an oily film (and your heating will stink).
