To All: Be careful with your Filler Pipe!!

[AmBo]

So last week I went to fill up my tank and the attendent tells me that my car is leaking gas all over the ground. I pulled up and wow, I had dropped probably close to 3 gallons of gas on the ground. So the whole way home I'm looking behind me for leaks while driving and stopping at lights. NOTHING.

So I bring the car into the mechanic and he takes a look. Turns out that Ford in their genius state of mind decided to wrap the metal filler hose with a plastic wire loom zip tied at the ends. So what this did was trap moisture in the plastic loom to rust the piss out of the filler hose. He said the amount of rust this thing produced was insane and he's now worried I have a little bit of rust in my tank. So now I have to not only replace the filler hose (~$130 from 50resto) and gasket (~$20) but I have to drop the tank and see if any rust got in the tank to be cleaned out JUST in case.

Just wanted to give everyone the heads up that if you have this stupid wire loom around your filler hose: TAKE IT OFF!!! You can see it if you just peek behind the tire.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Yeah this is yet another of the MANY common problems. Why did I buy a Ford again?

 

[AmBo]

Why did I buy a Ford again?

I never thought I'd say this, but this has been something I've been asking myself a LOT lately. I'm going to try to get one more year out of it and then it's time to move on.

 

[sneaky98gt]

Why did I buy a Ford again?

Because my car has 94,000 miles and I've spent < $300 on non-maintenance/non-performance parts??

Now I know many people have more problems than that (spark plug blowouts, threads stripping out, transmission and/or clutch, etc...), but I've been around nothing but Ford's all my life, a lot of them with more than 300,000 miles, and have good luck with all of them. My dad's van has 455,xxx miles on it, and all he's ever spent money on was general maintenance and 2 AC compressors. I'd say Ford isn't all that bad....

Anyway, back on topic. I looked an my car doesn't have the wire loom, but my grommet did rot out a little while back. It took me an $11 OEM gasket and about 30 minutes to fix it. Once again, not all that bad. But I do hate that your entire tube is rusted out; that sucks. May want to replace your fuel filter while you're at it.

-Will

 

[95Vert383AOD]

I had this problem on my 98 Towncar....I hack sawed the bad parts off. Then used rubber coolant hose i had lying around to reattach it with clamps. If gas tank side of the fill tube is bigger than the other like mine was i used 2 diff sized coolant tube and fit the rubber tube inside of the larger tube and then put the larger coolant hose over everything and clamped it. No leaks yet.

I'm horrible at explaining stuff...But i digress...yeah bad design. I actually thought it was the rubber grommet and bought a new one from ford before realizing the non essential plastic crap rusting the fill tube!!!!!

 

[mustang timmy]

that suks!!!!

 

[Mr. Rustypwnz]

ive had 8 mustangs, most of them have had over 150k on them, and none have ever had this problem, my 98 looks new and my 93 coupe looks perfect as well, there is no way it could have rotted that fast, are you sure nobody ever put any contaminants in the tank?

 

[GettinThere]

Because my car has 94,000 miles and I've spent < $300 on non-maintenance/non-performance parts??

+1 I don't mean to sound like a Ford homer, but I've had little trouble with two Fords and a significant amount of trouble with older GMs, Mazda, Saturn, and especially Plymouth.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I am always careful with my filler pipe

 

[sneaky98gt]

 

[bhuff30]

I can't say that I've ever seen that loom you are talking about around the filler tube. My 97 didn't have it anyway. As others said, I did have to replace the rubber grommet at the tank, but that was under 30$ and 2hrs work.

My 97 has been pretty good about repairs. Parts a pretty cheap and nothing is that difficult to access. The repairs that wern't my fault have all been fairly small and cheap, including the filler neckgrommet, cooling fan motor, plastic intake crack, a few belt tensioners and the AC system. The AC has been a real pain, but otherwise the fixes are cheap and easy enough. I suspect the timing chain is loose, so I'll have a look at the guides while installing PI cams. What can you expect for 169k miles though. Keep in mind, these are problem experienced since the car had 47k miles.

Problems that have been my fault, or made worse by me would include the rear end pinion bearing, and shift forks on the T45. Those were expensive fixes, and probably the result of racing.

Overall, not the cheapest car, but it isn't bad at alland is certainly a lot of fun for the $.

 

[SlammedGT]

are you sure its factory? maybe previous owner tie straped a piece of cheap crap pipe on

 

[BurningRubber]

My filler tube is also very rusty. I am concerned that it's rusting from the inside as well and getting rust in the tank.