Fuel tank removal... pain!

[mikey s]

Hi having a little bother with getting the fuel tank off to change my fuel pump.

The two front bolts come off no problem, but the 2 back seem to be just spinning. I can feel something on top spinning aswell that I'm guessing the bolt screws in to.

Has anyone managed to tackle this?

 

[tuonokid]

Hi Mikey
The back bolts are bolted into chimney nuts (I think they're called that) and when the plate part of these rusts they just spin with the bolt as you say. If you shine a torch at the fixing you should just be able to get some mole grips onto the top fixing whilst you undo the bolts.
Barry

 

[TylerB]

I remember I had to cut 2 bolts off with the grinder because they were so badly rust, maybe you got the same problem.

 

[mikey s]

Thanks both... I had to cut the back to bolts off as mentioned above those chimney nut things had rusted together.

Now I am having difficulty getting the red and white fuel pipes off. Squeezing the clips together but they still do not want to budge

 

[XAF]

[post]352817[/post] Thanks both... I had to cut the back to bolts off as mentioned above those chimney nut things had rusted together.

Now I am having difficulty getting the red and white fuel pipes off. Squeezing the clips together but they still do not want to budge

I share your pain! I had the same issue when doing mine. Trick is to keep the collars low down, don't let them click up. You can actually slide the collar up as to release the pipe, you need to release the small red collar that is in the pump by pushing it down, then pull up the pipe

 

[XAF]

This is the bugger.



The red circular collar that is in the pump is what you need to keep down. The red and white outer collars just push down on this so if the outer collar is broken or has unclipped, this is the bit to push down as you pull up.

Don't get angry at cut the thing off as fitting a new fuel line for my impatience wasn't fun!

 

[mikey s]

I managed to get them off in the end. As you said squeeze the tabs pushing the collars down and pulling the cables out. Very fiddly!

I got myself a sytec fuel pump replacement but the connector is different and you have a red and black wires coming out of the connect. Do these just splice directly on the the existing black and red wires in the tank as that doesn't seem very safe?