As I had a few spare hours this weekend I decided to load the tools into the Defender and head for the shed. Main job was preparing the shell for the removal the fuel tank. But I started with the removal of a few remaining parts that were fitted with pop rivets. And I hadn’t forgotten the cordless drill this time. Though after finishing with the drill, I found out I did have forgotten to pack a few items in the boot of the Defender. A pair of axle stands and the socket set to be precise. Bugger!
And this meant it was half an hour later that I could start with the removal of the back axle. Only to find out I hadn’t enough storage capacity for the fuel still remaining in the tank. Though I did have enough (small) containers to make sure no more fuel would escape ones the rear of the car was lifted. Something to bear in mind when I tackle the removal of the tank itself.
With the rear of the car securely supported, the actual removal of the back axle was straight forward. Support the axle on a trolley jack, remove the mounting bolts and pull the axle from underneath the car. As easy as it sounds. And hardly surprising bearing in mind that the axle was swapped only a few years ago.
And with the axle out if the way, I could have a proper look at the fuel tank and its fixings. As expected all four nuts are badly rusted. So these they were treated to a good splash of penetrating oil.
In the lower right corner of the picture above you can glimpse a rather strange fold in the bottom of the tank. And a closer inspection of the tank showed some rather strange damage to the underside:
As the tank's centre part looks fairly undamaged that rules out the back axle as possible culprit. There is also no visible outside (impact) damage to confirm this. So what happened here? The most likely explanation I can come up with, is that somewhere in the car’s earlier life the vents for the tank got blocked, thus creating a vacuum inside the tank. And this resulted in the this damage. The fact that I have seen similar damage on a few tanks in the past might proof this!? A shame really as apart from this the tank looks in pretty good condition from the outside. At least it doesn’t leak!
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