TIL: Don't park bus on a slope after filling the gas!

[barfsurfer]

Just had to share the totally random thing that happened to me today. After filling up the gas in my '66 Kombi, we drove over to a nearby tennis court and parked. The parking lot had a slight slope to it, so the bus was slightly tilted to the passenger side. Seriously... not a big slope, just barely noticeable.

When we got back to the bus, fuel was dripping all over the asphalt! Gas was just drooling out of the fuel filler neck. Quite a mess. Fuel was pooled in the tray where the fuel tank resides, and it was all over the frame and wiring. Got everything dried off and waited a while, and then drove home with sweetie clutching the fire extinguisher and looking for smoke out of the rear view mirror the whole time.

Has this ever happened to anyone? It's a pretty rare turn of events - the parking lot was super close to the gas station, probably less than a mile. I had no idea that the tank got THAT full and that it would be that sensitive to a slightly non-level parking spot.
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'66 Velvet Green Kombi

[mandraks]

[EverettB]

Yep, I've done that a few times too. It's a normal thing that can happen.
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[campingbox]

Gas expands when it gets warm, this is what makes it work to push your pistons towards the center of your engine. It can also expand in the tank and will run out the vent hole.

There is a drain tube at the bottom of that little shelf that routes the excess gas safely down below the vehicle. It sounds like yours is clogged, this is not uncommon. Try running a cut off clutch cable through the hole to free up the crud inside there.

[iubhounds]

I wish this thread was two weeks older. I had this happen in my single cab just a few weeks ago parked in front of my friends bicycle shop. The only diffrence, I had been trying to fix a very small leak that did not leak out the vent hole but out of the plate where a long vent hose was attached. Since it was a custom made aluminum tank, I thought I had an isolated case and it was the tank that was made. I did not know it was normal since I had never experienced it after years of owning buses.

I bought a new stock VW gas tank and had it installed last week. Since that time I have filled the tank to the max for the first time ever BUT I have not parked any place where the single cab is leaning to the left or right. Photos of my previous attempt to fixing that leak are posted in my gallery and other threads here on Samba.

Normal huh? Anyone want to buy a custom made 15gal aluminum gas tank that fits in the treasures chest of a 59 single cab? I will post photos and a sales on on the classifieds later today, Sunday January 17th.
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1960 VW Single Cab

[Dewayne]

About 5 yrs ago, I had taken my College Drawing class to a local park to draw and on the way back to campus I topped off my gas tank. When I got back on campus I had to park in a place I hadn't parked before. Some colleagues and I went to lunch at that time. About 30 minutes later my phone blew up.... Something was wrong with my truck! I headed back to campus to find the Tulsa Fire Dept., Tulsa Police and Campus Police surrounding my truck and crawling around under it. It took a lot of explaining and moving off the the incline to another parking spot to completely convince them that the gas dripping from under was not a big bad leak. I'm just glad they didn't decide to 'foam' it before I got there!

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[Erik G]

my impala has the filler behind the license plate sitting nice and low... just going up a slight incline does it
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[Tom snowden]

Yup! Happened to me just have to lean toward the driver side or a flat spot. I feel better that I’m not alone.

[BulliBill]

Man! Does this bring back memories!

Most of us have had this happen to us in one way or another. That was your turn to learn the lesson.

Cold gasoline stored in an underground gas station storage tank pumped into your warm Transporter on a warm or (even worse) hot day and then parked on even a slight slope will cause this misadventure as the gas warms and expands up your filler neck and is forced to ooze out your vented cap. Either put miles immediately after the fill-up to use/burn off the gas, or do not completely fill the tank.

I bet that won't happen to you again now that you know better! Welcome to the club!

Bill Bowman
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[d-rick]

This happened to me in my 13 window last year when we were out in Colorado. We had lunch at Bristol brewing Co(home of mass transit ale) then filled up with gas on our way back to Manitou Springs ,where I parked on Manitou Ave in front of a restaurant. My wife and I went for a walk around town and when we came back the bus was surrounded by MSFD..I quickly explained my dumb mistake and drove off
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1968 passenger bus *1/2
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1990 DoKa
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[VWAdam]

I had it happen back in the summer. I was actually parked on the street outside of a VW parts place. Another customer came in telling me I was pouring gas all over the place. I immediately realized and said that I'd just filled it up a couple of miles away and shouldn't have parked there. The guy kept saying there's no way I was going to be driving home with such a bad gas leak and insisted I didn't know what I was talking about, saying something about me being too young and inexperienced
Funny because when I moved it across the street into a flat parking lot it stopped.
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[Busted-bolt]

Been there done that ..except I did something thats a big no-no. It all began when after toping off the tank than drove it about 5 miles and parked it .Then I noticed a small fuel drip from the drain tube behind the the right hand rear wheel .Yes the bus was in a perking lot tilted to the right a bit and I thought it would be a good idea to vent the tank by cracking the cap a bit. That crap came shooting out and soaked my hand before i turned it back to lock position. Oops
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[Manfred58sc]

Broke-ass hippies only put in $5 at a time-never happened to them!
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[Dustin B]

I've had it happen to me a few times. I was talking to a few friends about it and one of them told me my gas cap wasn't venting. It was an aftermarket newer cap. My friend said to drill a small vent hole in the cap or get an original vw cap. I drilled a hole in the cap I had and never had a leaking problem again. I now have an og cap. Still no leaks and I top off every time at the pumps.
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[Split 66']

Most recent time this happened to me, was last week.

Parked with a full tank, and the passenger side jut a bit lower than the driver side.
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[Abscate]

Thermal expansivity of gasoline is very low , of order 0.0006 per F

Spillage is overfilling , not thermal Expansion of liquid. On an evap
Equippedcar it is possible that vapours can drive liquid to spill via the evap
System if there are faults in that system.
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[campingbox]

[mandraks]

[FarmerBill]

When gasoline is sold by the tanker full, often they will take a temperature reading and adjust the price accordingly. With many petroleum distillates a gallon isn’t always a gallon. I used to buy kerosine from a gas station that had an above ground storage tank. The colder it got the better the deal, just couldn’t store the full cans inside or they started puking out the vent.