IML: '82 fuel leak

[Nat Hall <nathall@xxxxxxxx>]

Today I began prepping my '82 for a 500+ mile touring excursion/vacation
I'll be making with my fiancee July 21-26.

I managed to get the car properly registered and street legal today after
it had been sitting for a while due to a failed smog test resulting in
denied tab renewal.

When I was making my initial check of the car, I noticed a peculiar damp
spot on my pavement underneah the rear of the car. I crawled under to
investigate, and sure enough, it was leaked fuel. GREAT.

The tank itself is still in great condition from what I can tell. The
source seems to be somewhere at the front end of the tank, higher up,
perhaps where the fuel lines attach or perhaps the sending unit. There is
some kind of heat shield at the front of the tank right in front of where
the leak is coming from. There is very little clearance between the tank
and this shield so I can not tell precisely what the source is aside from
that it is trickling down from higher up. Because the tank itself is in
near mint condition, I am assuming there is a bad gasket at fault somewhere.

Last weekend I had started the car up because it had been quite a while
since it had been run and I wanted to fill the tank since I didn't know how
long it would be until I got it street legal again. (I wouldn't have
bothered if I knew it would only be 5 days.) So I went to the gas station
and filled 'er up. I accidentally overfilled to the point a small bit of
gas splashed out the fill tube before I could stop the pump. Then I drove
back home (I live a couple hundred feet from the gas station, literally)
and parked it.

Since this is absolutely the first time I have ever seen evidence of a
leak, I want to think it has something to do with my overfilling. Perhaps
the gasket at the fill tube/tank junction is bad and maybe I can avoid this
by simply not topping off when I gas up. I drove the car around a bunch
today to get the fuel level down a bit and then parked 'er. I am going to
check tomorrow morning for a wet spot, and if I don't find one, I am going
to assume it was due to the unusually high fuel level.

However, I'd like to find out about any problem prone spots on these cars I
should check into should the problem prove more severe. My car is the
(factory) carbureted variant-- I only mention because I understand they had
different fuel tanks/lines than the EFI cars.


-------------------
Nat Hall
1982 Imperial Coupe
1987 Chrysler New Yorker
http://newyorker.digital-forever.com
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