Hi all,
I'm new to this forum and, having just bought a '73 F-250 Camper Special, I have an issue that some of you may know about: When I try to put gas in the tank, I get about 2 seconds worth of fuel, then it trips. I have to very carefully tilt the nozzle this way and that, trying to find the sweet spot. I have to hold the trigger with just a hair's worth of pressure or the thing trips again and again. It's very aggravating.

Is this a venting issue? Is there a fix? Possible retrofit a new style unleaded filler tube?

Thanks,

 

Welcome To FTE. Well, sometimes it can be that the vent is clogged. Also has the tank been removed or the filler tube been moved around or disconnected form the tank. Sometimes when the filler tube gets shifted or disconnected, the metal filler tube inside the rubber outer tube gets misaligned from the center and makes ir really hard to fill.

Madmike33

 

Your truck is normal. Back before 77 the gas pumps were designed differently and so were the filler openings. One fix is to switch the filler opening to the 77-79 style but thats a lot of work. Or when you fill the tank rotate the nozel so its upside down. Basically try anything you can think of to find the sweet spot and stick with it.

 

This is a common problem on these truck amd FTE must have Hundreds of threads about it.

I wish Ford would have been smarter about this back then

 

(Ooops, only read this one so far)

One thing I was having trouble with were the nozzles that didn't have a bend in the middle of the nozzle's pipe. I would drive through looking at all the "new fat piped nozzles with the bend too near the handle" and keep going until I found and old (bent in the middle) style that would work.

Early on in the introduction of the "new style pipe" I went in and complained and a young station employee (that was related to the owner/manager) came out and went over the trouble with me. They never bought anymore of the type I was complaining about again.

I always had trouble here in AZ of the rear tank having too much fuel in it and getting hot and spewing gas out of it. I came up with a halfassed fix but seems to me the real problem is in the placement of the fuel tank's inlet tube, it's just plain ol' too low on the tank. The other problem is the inlet tube extends into the tank and goes all the way to the bottom! :/

My fix was to "dremel" some wide thin slots into the "roof" of the inlet tube just inside the tank so it relieves some of the burden of the tube going to the bottom of the tank but don't fix it for filling, only fixed the "getting hot and spewing gas" problem.

Figuring no one's going to even try my halfassedfix... but I guess I should say how I did it so someone won't kill themselves. With the gas tank plumb full of water and even having a small diameter extension on the garden hose with water running out of the large inlet tube I reached inside with a demel sporting one of the fiber glass re-inforced cut-off wheels. Plan to get really wet when that 30,000 rpm wheel touches the water!

I figure the 34 gallon tank would fix many of the problems we're having with that rear gas tank.

Whatcha say (guys that's got 'em)?

Alvin in AZ
ps- and don't buy gas in ElPasoTX, they got the fume recovery type nozzles there, just outside of town on the NewMexico side is the place to go if you gotta have gas

 

What people can do...,. is purchase a piece of Fuel hose that can slip over the pump nozzle securely and that will slide right down into the tank leaving space for the back pressure to come back out the filler tube.

They can put it behind the seat... waiting for the next fuel stop.

 

Would that actually work tho? Haven't tried it, just figured it would interfere with the nozzles "automatic off" feature. :/

Something else I did to my 75 F150 was buy from Ford new filler pipe hoses and found out on installation that the factory put my hoses on upside down and backwards, adding to the "filling problems" I'd lived with for years before that. (found several things like that, from the factory, on my pickup)

I ordered my pickup to not have a cab tank. I wanted the space for other stuff and didn't want to hear gas sloshing around, both. I knew tho from experience with the company trucks, that they are the best for re-fueling, a dream to re-fuel, even using a gas can.

Alvin in AZ (retired RR signalape)

 

Thank you all for the ideas. I remember back when I was a young buck, and a '73 was my high school "must have" truck. They seemed to have that problem. It was less severe then. I'm thinking it has to do with poor design, aggravated by the newer EPA nozzles.

The tubes have never been disturbed, but of coarse, they are very old and there's some rust on/in the truck. They could be clogged.

The extension hose idea... hmmm. I'll try that.

Any further thoughts on complete replacement of the tubes with the later design? That sweet spot is evasive. I ask because almost every major system on the truck has been rebuilt or restored. It might well be the best solution since the rig is so nice. I'll see about posting a pic in the Gallery as soon as I figure things out around here.

Thanks for the welcome.

Huh, guess the pic stuff works...

 

add a body lift my 79 had the same problem since the fuel hose runs between the box and frame rails, after i added a 3" body lift i can walk away and fill it up. perhaps my truck bed was from a earlier model, the original tag is on it but i didnt look.

but this worked for me

 

Oh man does that ever sound right to me too!

Only one problem I don't want a lift, so I had to work at it as-is. :/

What I did was "bend the support" (little piece of steel that's spot welded to the bed) so it went from:
_
.|_

to

_
..\_

Effectivly raising the rubber hose.
Also made the hoses "rounder" with hose clamps and a tin can.

All the silly stuff I did, still didn't fix it up to work as good as kilog55's lift did tho. :/

Alvin in AZ
ps- needed dots for "spacers" in my ascii art

 

you could try and fit a pvc pipe in the hose itself i would use scheduled 80 the dark colored wtuff as it has less chlorine in it. but thats just a guess if it would work.

or holesaw the frame and feed it through the frame rail.

just some out of the air suggestions.

but yeah the body lift helped the problem all together, they make 2 inch lifts but it would still be noticeable