Fuel tank issues Falcon Rancheros & Wagons

Attention all Falcon Ranchero and Wagon owners! Gather round here my friends and read this thread. Its all about the fuel tank which Mr. Ford opted to use on our sweet little machines.

Think back and truthfully tell me if this has ever happened to you. On any old day you fill the tank and then drive to work, a car show or perhaps make-out point. The day is warm, your car might be sitting at a slight angle. When you return to your car you notice a fuel slick on the ground under your driver side fender. Your paint has bubble & peeled. Perhaps you pop the fuel cap, to your surprise more fuel rushes from the filler neck as if were an artesian spring. Or perhaps you dont see the spreading fuel slick, but do noticed your paint is discolored, antiqued and seems to smell of old fumie gas.

This has happened to me several times. It is embarrassing, wasteful and a serious safety concern. I would hate to think that my Ranchero was the cause of a car show blaze.

I tried to concentrate on what was causing this odd welling of gasoline from my tank. what on earth could cause it to such a thing. I realized that pressure was building in my tank. Pressure which is supposed to be released through the tank vent. I checked my tank vent (by blowing into it). My tank vent flowed freely. So if my tank vent was flowing properly what else could be allowing pressure to build in my tank.


I had installed a brand new OEM tank by Spectra Part Number: F55B, just one year ago. I knew this tank was as fresh as could be as were all the hoses.

When Installed this new tank I noticed something odd about it right off the bat. The drain plug is aiming UP!! I checked my old tank, original to the Ranchero. It too had a drain plug that aimed upward. What on earth was going on here?

I looked at a brand new Ford Flacon tank and soon solved the mystery. It appears as if the designers at Ford decided to really cheap out on the Wagons and Ranchero's by using a Falcon tank. As we know a Falcon fills from the rear of the car. A wagon and Ranchero can not fill from the rear, they have to be filled from the side. So Ford simply fliped a factory Falcon tank upside down, punched a fill neck into the side of the tank and created the Ranchero / Station Wagon tank. Good to go, Right?

There is only one breather vent on the Falcon tank, but it is close to the middle. Where the vent on the Ranchero Wagon tank is on the driver side & I think that the vent extends into the tank about 1/8th of an inch. I also noticed that the fill neck dose not pour into the top of the tank like a Falcon but it pours in from the side. So when your tank is FULL so is your filler neck...AND your rubber Union!! Makes you want to inspect your rubber union now doesn't it!!

My rubber union was CRACKED & NASTY. No one (circa 2012) made a rubber hose for the Ranchero or the Wagon fuel tank. Lucky for me I was able to locate a generic hose at the local parts house which did the trick nicely.
Part Number: GATES-24712

To better understand the problem I whipped up these graphics to help illustrate what is going on inside our fuel tanks.


1. Full tank. All is good. The tank vents from both the fill neck and the vent tube. I suppose that the vent tube could be below the fuel level when the tank is full. If this is true than the vent would not really be venting anything. The fill neck will be the path of least resistance.

2. When parking at any angle with the filler neck aiming down hill, I believe that both the vent and the filler neck are covered by fuel. An air gap pocket is trapped on the passengers side of the tank with no vent provided for the expanding gasses.

3. As the fuel evaporates the gasses increase in volume creating pressure, like filling a balloon with air. Problem with this balloon is that it is made of metal. The point of least resistance is the large filler neck tube. Because there is fuel in the neck and the pressure in the tank is rising, the pressure actually pushes a column of fuel up and out.

I believe that this is what is happening in my case. When I visit my car, with a full tank, on a warm day, I’ll twist my fuel cap off and it is like someone is pouring fuel from a beer pitcher. Once that has poured out I can see a flat pond of fuel in my filler neck, right up to the brim. And if I shake the car a bit, I’ll get burps and bubbles from the tank.

It seems obvious to me that this tank is not well venerated.

So what is the solution?

Currently I have removed the useless drain plug and installed a brass hose nipple, from the hardware store. I have routed a vent line over to the passengers side of the vehicle. This did not solve my problem for this added vent is also on the same side as the filler neck and vent.

In my NON PROFESSIONAL opinion, the real solution would be to install a tank that had three vents in three special places. One vent at the forward left hand corner, one vent in the center of the tank and one vent at the back right hand corner. This would allow the tank to vent like modern cars no matter how full or at what angle.

Is there a good fuel tank for an early Falcon Ranchero or Station Wagon?? I don’t know.

I’m hopping that others early Falcon Wagon / Ranchero owners will read this and offer some helpful ideas.

At some point in time, this year, I will tackle this problem. I’m just beginning the process so I don’t have any solutions in mind right now.

Any ideas would be helpful.

 

Hey dropout! Good to hear from ya. I haven't had the problems you described yet with the wagon, but even with a new seal in the gas cap it still leaks like a sieve sometimes. I have decided to follow RickWrench's lead from him web page and change my filler to a Jag XJ flip cap on top of the left rear quarter. it has a vent tube at the filler as well and I no longer will have to crouch down to fill the dumb thing too. It's a bit too soon for pictures yet, but I'll do a step by step when I get that far.

 

Yeah, I am moving my filler to the top of the quarter on my '60 sedan, behind the window, with a Cobra style cap. Tired of getting yelled at for spilling while filling, as CA short-nozzle gas pumps flow at a rate far beyond what can be reliably be sent around the corner of the filler neck. The only way to fill is at 1/2 throttle, which taked 10-minutes. My vent is clean and clear.

 

replacing the tank in the 63 soon, ive noticed the whole pressure while hot thing alot. especially since there is a slight tin can in my old tank and when it warms up it "bumps" the other issue ive come across is gas flowing back out of the filler neck because the filler is perfectly flt faced and the car has a backward rake. all this combined with it running out of gas if you turn to fast because it all goes to the back of the tank, its getting really annoying.

 

So I'm not the only one! Sorry to hear about all of your problems, everyone.

Moving the fill neck up is a great idea. Modifying the fill hole with a modern style entry is smart.

But what about the tank? Are you guys going to run the OEM tank as is? Or do you have other tanks that would do a better job?

- Louvers you need to either share your pics on this thread or put your thread link on my link so that I and others can see what it is you're up to.

- Gimpy, photos and/or links to your thread would be great too. I hadnt thought about cars running into this issue. Any ideas and photos would be a great help.

- 69F100, are you swapping out tanks to a new breed? If so please provide the part number and manufacturer so that we can have a record of it.

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This comming weekend I'm going to fill the tank again and see if my new vent makes any difference. I'm going to park it at a slight angle, filler neck down, and I'll let you know if it did the same old thing.

I have a 67 Scout and its twin saddle tanks were really bad. So I found a Jeep CJ7 Tank would fit. Yarded out all the fuel tank stuff from a Wrangler and did a hell of a lot of work and now I have a modern filler neck that vents good and fills good.

It's time for the Ranch to do the same thing.

 

When I get into doing mine I certainly will.

My gas cap is common to the Jag XJ6 cars that are fairly ambiguous here in the western states with the twin flip up fill caps. My buddy ElPolacko had one sitting behind his shop that had been raided for it's suspension unit for the "Jag suspension under a '57 Olds" thread running here. Ten minutes with a cutting blade and it was mine. I have to admit that I didn't dream this idea up. The credit for that goes to a guy that calls himself rickwrench.com. You can check out his version on his sight.

 

is this a problem only with the wagons ? I have never had the problem u describe in my HT
btw I also have a 67 IH 800 and I feel ur pain tank wise

oh crap now I see - the tank is set "upside down" and under the bed- aaahhhaaa

 

It sucks but I never fill the tank on my Wagon all the way up

 

Nope, my sedan does it too.

 

http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=4303881&cc=1334753
Here is the tank ill be running, it just so happens to also be the cheapest, but also the neck is straight up which is perfect for relocating the filler neck and cap straight up and into the trunk. i went and put gas in my falcon today for the first time ever at a gas station, put 15 dollars in the tank and five on the ground. this tank might be happening alot sooner than i thought haha

 

Good detective work, here.

 

Fun, ain't it?

 

I had a '65 Hardtop, and it was a total PITA to fill and did the leaking thing on hot days too... I did find that some pump nozzles were better than others, there was two stations that I used almost exclusively because of that. But even the 'good' nozzles still took time...

I've got a 'ol beater-but-reliable '75 Ford PU that's every bit as bad as the Falcon was....

 

Years ago when they made us use the "nozzle condoms" (My slang for the giant corrugated rubber vapor trapper hippie pleaser things on gas pump nozzles) here in Phoenix, I got tired of hour long fill ups and very simply disconnected the tank from the filler on my coupe, found another filler nozzle and cap assembly that had a vent, bought a three inch section of filler hose and clamped the new nozzle and cap assembly to it. I filled the original fill hole and routed the vent line inside the quarter and out a hole I drilled on the inside of the quarter. I had to lift the decklid to fill it, but it worked like a charm and it took all of an afternoon to do it in a crafts manly manner...

 

thats another little thing that will benefit from this, the decklid is getting shaved and there will be a little handle that will pop the trunk inside the car, this part is already set up, just not the shaving, so in order to open the trunk you have to be inside, when the car is locked so is the trunk and so is the gas.

 

Did the extra vent solve the problem? I am just about to install the F55B in my 1962 Falcon 2-door Wagon.

 

there is nothing new about this problem. It has palgued Falcon/Comet wagons and Ranchero's since days one. Here's proof. That my Mom, Sister and me with our one year old 61 Comet wagon - notice the staining on the side of the car under the gas cap. As these cars get older the problem does become worse, but it was a bad design from the get go. The problem isn't just the vent hose - it is the relatively flat angle of the filler neck and my 75 F-150 had the same issue.


69f100 - it you putting that fiiler neck in the truck make DAMN SURE that you use a Non Vented cap and a big vent hose to the outside. I did this on my 63 convertible and if the cap seal isn't good you will fill the trunk with gas vapors - a sure invitation for a BIG BOOM

 

Absolutely Don! I didn't mention that in my post above. The cap has to be sealed!

 

I have not had the nuts to fill the tank to the brim yet!!

I had a car show this last weekend (Rose City Round-up), I was not about to become a fire hazard in the middle of a kick ass show.

This coming weekend I have another car show. I'll fill up for that, but then will be driving for a 1.5 hours, so I wont be full when I arrive.

So in one week, I'll put the Super Dave helmet back on, fill my tank and park it in the sun. Hope it doesnt leak and hope no one flicks their cig butts under the Ranchero.

 

DUDE!! Sweet photo.

Very interesting. Before the days of safety recalls I suppose. Perhaps the reason for Safety Recalls!! ahahah.

What a drag. You buy a new kick ass car and the sucker leaks fuel all over the joint. Economy car? not when it is pouring out onto the ground. I wonder how many people raised hell, or if this type of thing was more common that we realize today.

 

Hey 69F100,

What is your 63 again?

FTK010086 is a Falcon Fuel tank right?

 

Well, gents? What's the progress? I have this problem too on my 64 wagon. I've been thinking about putting the fill tube behind the tail light. I would like to see some pictures of the cobra/jag style cap on the quarter!

 

I feel your pain. I have a '65 Olds Vista Cruiser which has all the symptoms you describe. I'm wondering if it's a wagon kind of thing.

 

I just added a breather to the pass side of my tank. I have not had time to put the tank back on the Ranch. I'll post pics and results once I have more time....mid March.


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Ok time for the fun to start. I've done my chores and spring is around the corner.

My next post will review my new breather on the pass side of the tank.


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Ok, looking forward to hearing it!

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Any other gas cap on my Wagon would look out of place and would not look right to me so I'm going to live with it and just not fill a Her all the way up

 

I have a 1963 Ranchero. While spilling gas is a problem keeping the original gas cap is another. With the costs of around 150 15 years ago I decided that I would try to keep mine as well as solving the seep problem. I took the filler neck and cut it in the middle and turned it 180 degrees. I took the inspection panel inside the bed and cut the rear 1/3 off and put a hinge on it and a lock. I positioned the filler neck so it came out where I had opened up the inspection panel. Now it fills better and if it does leak it does not go on the paint. To save the gas cap I drilled a small hole in the chrome piece and countersunk it. I took a long, small, countersunk Phillips head screw and ran it through the hole as well as a piece of 2x4 and put a couple of nuts jambed together on the inside. If they want the cap they will have to take the quarter off.
I doubt this info will help for a station wagon but for Rancheros owners it might.

 

Fuzzy, that is a sweet suggestion. I'm going to do that next. Great idea. I'll add pics when I complete the job.

Currently here are the pics from my latest tank upgrade.

PLEASE NOTE: I am an not suggesting in anyway that a fuel tank should ever be altered in anyway. The photos I share are simply to let you see what I have done. Be safe, Never work on a fuel tank that has had fuel in it. Be smart, dont blow up your garage or kill yourself.



I've added a vent to my current tank



Here is an inside view.



Here is a view of the vent hose connected. All of this is located on the Passangers side of the tank.

I'm in the process of repainting my Ranch, and the weather has not been very hot anyway.

While the paint is off, I will try to fab up a Fuzzy Knight filler neck and let you see how that goes.

 

Anybody have any updated results? Trying to tackle my gas tank as well.


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