Club 80-90 Forums

Hi all, I’ve just bought a 1989 T25, absolute beauty, I went to fill it up with petrol, bloody thing had a bottomless petrol tank, when I’d filled it up it started to pour petrol from underneath the front of the van and I left a trail of the stuff for a few hundred yards, is this normal, is there some kind of overflow or do I have a leek? The past few times I’ve only put about 45 quids worth of fuel in and it’s ben fine, no leeks or trails of petrol. Any ideas? Cheers, Rich.

Classic. Could be any of the following: Rust holed fuel tank
Disconnected or split vent hoses
(ditto expansion hoses)
Split filler neck grommet

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The tank is 60litres capacity.
You have a leak, common on poorly maintained T25s .
It will either be the seal into the tank around the filler neck , or the breather pipes are missing, perished or disconnected

It’s a tank off job , but not beyond a Saturday mechanic on the driveway . Awkward rather than hard

Yes mine did that when touring in France as I filled it on a sloping forecourt on a particularly cold morning. I finished my holiday running on a reduced fuel charge and only ran the fridge on hook up when parked in case the fumes found a source of ignition - sparks from a switch could do it . When I looked into it at home I found the big fat crossover pipe somehow off at one end.

Tricky to fit the numerous bits of plumbing with the tank in place as a load of stuff is routed through the channel in the top of the tank. I do a fairly regular 250 mile round trip and fill the tank to the brim each time. Many years later I just can't refrain from peering under the tank every time I fill up .

Thanks for all your replies I really appreciate it. I’ll get underneath and check it out, although I’m not very mechanically minded so it may have to be a job for the local VW workshop.

I installed a new tank on my van not so long ago because my old one had rust issues, it's a pain in the ass job but not impossible to do. In my opinion the worst part of the job is installing the cross over pipe on the top of the tank.. as it has to go over the cooling pipes that go to your rad/heater. Mind you I was balancing the tank on my knees while pushing it up trying to keep it high enough to fit the damn pipe into the grommets.

Look up on youtube and there are quite a few "how to" videos on it. It gives you the gist of what needs doing but obviously that is if you wanna get under your van and get messy...