Stranded at gas station 300 miles from home!!

[Ed Hall]

It works!! I got the car started.

Anyways, I'll be on my way this afternoon back 400 miles away.

Thanks for all the moral support of this board.

[Cadillac Jim]

KHE -- many pro mechanics will do things like drain a gas tank through a hole and fix it with a metal screw. Some of them use an O-ring under the screw with Loktite. If the tank has been cleaned, solder is an option instead of an O-ring.

Note that soldering won't cause a spark or ignite gasoline. Soldering temperatures are a couple of hundred degrees too low.

[KHE]

KHE -- many pro mechanics will do things like drain a gas tank through a hole and fix it with a metal screw. Some of them use an O-ring under the screw with Loktite. If the tank has been cleaned, solder is an option instead of an O-ring.

Note that soldering won't cause a spark or ignite gasoline. Soldering temperatures are a couple of hundred degrees too low.

I wouldn't call them "pro mechanics" - more like hacks.... I would be so pissed if someone drilled into my gas tank to drain it rather than pump it out... An empty fuel tank that is open to the atmosphere is far more combustible than a full tank of fuel. There is no way I'd attempt to solder some patch on a gas tank.

[Cadillac Jim]

KHE -- you would use the hole-and-screw trick only if you couldn't drain or siphon the tank wihtout dropping it first, and dropping it full wasn't a good option.

There's no reason to believe that a well-repaired hole would cause any loss of integrety whatsoever to the tank. The key is the quality of the repair.

Pro mechanics do things like that to save time. If the fuel pump allows little or no gas to be drained and there isn't another way such as using an electric fuel pump hooked onto the gas tank outlet, and the anti-siphon mechanism can't be worked around with the tank in the car, then something like that becomes a reasonable thing to look at.

Of course, getting three strong men to help you drop the tank is a good idea, too. Then, once the fuel pump assembly is pulled, the tank can be siphoned through the fuel pump mount access and the fuel replaced through the filler cap after the job is done. But, I've heard of the hole-and-screw trick more than once over the years. I've never heard of it causing a problem, even with age.

[KHE]

Jim,

If you want to believe that poking a hole in a gas tank to drain the fuel and then patching it with a screw is an acceptable repair, that's fine. I do not and I think it is a hack job at best and I would not allow it to be done to my car... I would rather wrestle with a full tank than hack it up with a hole and a screw. Before I'd poke a hole in the fuel tank, I'd attempt to remove the rubber pipe connector between the filler pipe and the tank to gain access for a siphon hose. The same hose could be cut and then replaced when the tank was reinstalled.

The "Pro" that attempted the first Timesert job on my STS (prior to me purchasing it) decided not to use the drill fixture in order to save time - the end result is the inserts were installed too deep in the block and the Timeserts fractured when the "pro" torqued the heads down. The pros then would not stand behind the repair....

[The Fred]

Jim,

If you want to believe that poking a hole in a gas tank to drain the fuel and then patching it with a screw is an acceptable repair, that's fine. I do not and I think it is a hack job at best and I would not allow it to be done to my car... I would rather wrestle with a full tank than hack it up with a hole and a screw. Before I'd poke a hole in the fuel tank, I'd attempt to remove the rubber pipe connector between the filler pipe and the tank to gain access for a siphon hose. The same hose could be cut and then replaced when the tank was reinstalled.

The "Pro" that attempted the first Timesert job on my STS (prior to me purchasing it) decided not to use the drill fixture in order to save time - the end result is the inserts were installed too deep in the block and the Timeserts fractured when the "pro" torqued the heads down. The pros then would not stand behind the repair....

Those pros could use a professional visit from a pro

[Cadillac Jim]

I'm not saying that anything is acceptable or unacceptable as a repair to anyone. The remark about drilling a hole and using a metal screw was a joke, but I indeed have heard of it several times over the years. Occasionally, I will see a metal screw in the bottom of a gas tank -- that's an acceptable way of repairing a pinhole leak from a rock dent by some, if properly done. I suspect that some of them are not from pinhole leaks, though.

You assume that you could get a siphon hose in the gas tank with the rubber filler hose off the tank, without dropping the tank. If so, that's the way to go -- but I didn't hear about Ed Hall doing that, so it seems that he couldn't.

When you have a full anti-siphon gas tank with an in-tank fuel pump that is dead and won't allow significant flow out the gas line, you have three obvious alternatives:

1. Drop the full gas tank, like Ed Hall did. I would want to see four strong men do that job.
2. Accept whatever time it takes to drain the tank through the fuel line (best, if possible).
3. Find another way to drain the tank.

If you hole the tank to drain it and no repair is acceptable, then you need a new gas tank. The whole joke was about the "Catch 22" nature of the situation.

An unacceptable repair to me is the use of self-tapping oil drain plugs. I lost three engines in one car and one in another car, a total of four engines, due to filling station mechanics stripping out the oil drain plug and replacing it with a self-tapping drain plug that didn't have a magnet. I salvaged the last one but I traded the car a few months later. All the mechanics thought that I was nuts when I went ballistic over the self-tapping drain plugs == "We do it all the time" -- and fill junkyards. That repair seems acceptable to almost everyone who has not traced main bearing failure to filings in the oil from a self-tapping oil drain plug.

I do recall a unique (I hope) Catch 22 repair that I did. I was replacing the motor supports on a 1969 Chevrolet with the 427 cid engine. To lift the engine, I used a wheel, a board across the wheel, a Corvette scissor jack, and a short section of 2 X 12" lumber between the jack and the oil pan. The motor supports pivot on bolts secured with aircraft nuts. I was doing this job as a quickie after work so that I could take the car and go vote. I dropped the aircraft nut and it bounced through the hub hole in the wheel.

[Ed Hall]

Here are some pictures of my IV bottle setup I used to get me to a safe place that I could do the repair. I made the 400 miles trip back safely last night. The only thing I took off and didn't put back on due to the repair was the rear sway bar. The car did not come with a rear sway bar and I had added one from a '90 STS. Without the sway bar, the car rode much more smoother. This is even with 17" wheels and tires however, handling was decreased and the steering was more vague. For long highway trips though, I think I would rather have the better ride. So anyone with an STS that is looking for a smoother ride, an easy fix might be to remove the rear sway bar.

[adallak]

Cool setup, Ed! Good job. Glad you made home without making headlines of cable news.