Fuel Filler Hose. What Do I Do Now?

[whyverne14]

Well I ignored the gas fill on the old Dolphin for too long. It would really go in slow. As slow as you could go. I had an excuse with my two broken ankles but it caught up with me. We were an hour out, on E on a Sunday afternoon and it wouldn't take any gas at all.

But timing is everything. A guy pulled up next to us in a dump truck and said "Hey, nice rig". I said, "We got a major problem". He said "Follow me up to the farm". Now he was one of those guys who unlike me, doesn't ponder things. And I was glad of it. Within in an hour, he ripped out the old filler hose (which turned out to be a totally jury rigged system made out of old exhaust pipes and various pieces of hose), drilled a hole in the side, used some ABS pipe to connect the hose directly to the tank and we headed back to the gas station. It worked great, no leaks and we were on our way. After I shook his hand with a hundred bucks in my hand.

So this is what I got now. It works wonderfully but the main problem is that the vent is just sticking out there and gas will surge out of it when you fill the tank with gas. I've been shoving an ear plug into the vent line to keep water out. HeeHee. So I was thinking that I would just install a fitting into the top of the plastic pipe there and connect the vent hose to that. The problem is that I don't know if any of this is legal. I'm going to stop down the garage and see what they got to say.

So I thought that you might enjoy the story. I got a kick out of it. Life with the old Dolphin.

[WME]

The jury rigged set up was most likely original. It would take a lot of abuse in an accident. The abs will crack very easily.
The correct fuel hose is expensive, you buy it by the inch. So the steel tubing lets you shape the fill line to fit around things.
Most of the time a slow fill is a poorly installed vent line. The vent line needs to run up hill all the way, no sags.

[Bob C]

I have to stop putting gas in the tank as soon as the pump shuts off the first time. If I try to "top it off" I end up with the vent hose getting fuel in it and the vent stops working. When that happened the first time, I could not get any gas into the tank. I found out if I crawled under the RV and pushed the vent hose up to get the gasoline out of it, I could go back to putting fuel in.

I know that I should change out the hoses but as long as I don't top off the tank, things work good.

[linda s]

Yes 2 hoses and a pipe connecting them and also the very important vent tube. It's possible your vent tube was just clogged and if air can't get out fuel can't get in. I just had a major blow out that knocked my fuel filler hoses apart and I completely lost the shield that protects them. Tubes were still all fine though and I could put them together enough to get fuel to get home. Your ABS pipe would have been completely wiped out and you would have been stuck. Try to get it back together the right way

Linda S

[Totem]

The jury rigged set up was most likely original. It would take a lot of abuse in an accident. The abs will crack very easily.

The correct fuel hose is expensive, you buy it by the inch. So the steel tubing lets you shape the fill line to fit around things.

Most of the time a slow fill is a poorly installed vent line. The vent line needs to run up hill all the way, no sags.

^^ This.

I had this same issue and turns out the vent hose was sagging ever so slightly from too much excess hose. trimming it up tight and reinstalling on the vent nipple resolved the issue.