I own a 94 ford 5.0 flareside. Today I went outside and notice something pouring from the front of thevehicle on the passenger side . Upon opening the hood it looks like the purge canister is leaking fuel. I removed the rear hose and the canister is full of fuel.. What is making this happen and is it supposed to be full of fuel.. Stopped leaking after a few minutes. I might add it has sit for a couple of days.. Nothing before has leaked out... I have not scanned for a code but was wondering what would make this happen...
Any ideas>
Thanks in advance
rick

 

If you have dual tanks, welcome to the crossover problem. If not your tank is overfilled and fuel is coming out the vent to the canister when it expands.

My guess is you have dual tanks. One is over full, mine would overfill the front tank when I was driving off the rear, once that happens there is no place to go out other than the vent ... or the filler when you open the tank cap. You will need to replace one or both of your fuel pumps, I did my front a few weeks ago, still haven't driven from it, but intend to fill it today and drive from it to see if the rear gets crossfilled, the front no longer crossfills when I use the rear.

 

yes, it does have dual tanks, i only use the rear tank. The front tank gauge doesn't work. It makes sense. The rear tank lately seems to use more fuel than before, and now reading what you have said makes sense. I was wondering if this is a fire issue or not,
Rick

 

Naaaaaaaaaa .... Gasoline pouring out of the front of your engine bay with all the hot metal and sparks is never a fire problem .... Siphon a good bit of the fuel out of the front tank and put it in the rear tank, then use your front tank if you can, becuase whenever you use the rear you will be filling the front. Before I changed my front pump I thought I had run it out of gas, I siphoned 16 gallons out of it to change the pump. The float probably has a hole in it causing your gauge problem. That happened to me.

BTW .... you may still be covered by the recall on the pumps, I think it was for 12 years. This is the one that affected my truck, http://www.internetautoguide.com/aut...ase/index.html I didn't see one on fuel problems for the 94, but see what you can find.

 

Thanks for the report. I wondered a while back why my front tank seemed as if it had more gas than it should. This explains it. 16 gallons of gas, what did that tank hold? 18 or 20 ? Would you change the front float or the whole assembly>? I will be calling Ford Tuesday about the recall... I don't know what my inservice date for the 94 is, but I am below the 150k mileage... just barely.... I thought it was something that had erupted or something like a sensor had gone badd...Common sense ..... LOL....
Let me know about the fuel pump replacdement... The rear works fine... just not the front, the pump works ,just not the float..
THanks again
Rick

 

The same problem can be caused by a bad tank selector valve. Those have a pressure side and a return side. If the return side is leaking and the fuel is being routed to the wrong tank it will fill one tank from the other.

 

Torque1st
How do you know if it is a bad tank selector valve> I haven't used the front tank in months , and wonder if it is the tank selector valve....
Rick

 

I think yours has the same setup as mine, there is a valve inside the pumps that opens when in operation to allow return fuel, we don't have selector valves on the frame rail, wish we did.

I tried running on my front today for the first time since changing the pump, truck doesn't want to start on the front, will run, but doesn't do well unless at running speed, idle OK but may die in traffic, my front tank had a backflow valve on the supply side, looked like something added later by ford for one of the previous recalls on the fuel system, now I guess I will have to check the rear for that, seems like the pressure on the supply side is not right and is backflowing through the feed side of the rear pump. But I do not get any backflow or crossflow on the front side when using my rear tank now, I can live with a 18 gallon tank for now. My front tank has a 16 gallon capacity, so I had to siphon it all out, and it would not run unless it had less than 13 gallons in it. As for the float, when you pull the tank you can see if the float is full of fuel, if so, that is probably the problem with it reading empty all the time, it's just a $5 part, you probably don't need the sender and it may be hard to find unless you buy the whole pump Assy from ford for about $250.

 

My bad, I didn't know what year they stopped using the frame mount selector valve.