As the song goes, "You can't always get what you want!"
On the way home from the Carlisle Ford Nationals last weekend I filled the tank at a gas stop just a few miles from home. I immediately smelled fuel, which was nothing new. But shortly after parking it in my garage I noticed that it was pushing fuel out the vent hose and onto the garage floor. There was a pretty fair size puddle and it was still coming. Something had to be done! When I removed the fuel fill cap a good bit of pressure was relieved and the fuel stopped flowing. After doing some research and talking it over with some friends I realized the error I'd made and realized I'd have to compromise something I'd worked hard for to get the tank for vent properly and safely.
Back story: My vision from the start of this build is to turn this race car into a road worthy GT car. And one of the mods was to add as much trunk space as possible. To that end I dropped the trunk floor about six inches and replaced the Mustang fuel tank with a custom tank from RCI. When I installed the tank I realized that the hose connections stood above my beautiful flat trunk floor. "No problem", said I. I'll just tilt the tank a little.
DUMB IDEA. When the tank would be full it would have a large bubble of trapped air (about a gallon and a half) and the tank vent would be under a couple of inches of fuel!
So it seems that after I filled the tank the trapped air expanded and pushed fuel out the vent hose. It would have to push that gallon and a half of fuel out before the vent would be able to purge the air. Bad News!
It took a couple of days, but I just finished leveling the tank, rerouting the vent hose and enclosing the hose connection. I miss my beautiful flat floor. But I won't miss the fire hazard, the fuel smell and the puddle on the garage floor!
Vent Hose:
Fuel Hoses
Covering it all up. It would have been so much neater and easier in fiberglass!.