Water in fuel tank

[mezzogio]

Hi

I am the recent owner of an ocean haze griffith 500. This car sits nicely in my garage all the time but I had to park it in the outside access ramp for a rainy weekend. Ramp is such that the back of the car is higher than the front. It's a fairly steep ramp (30/40 cm down for 1 m horizontal).

it did rain a lot during the weekend, and i needed to move it the next day, the engine fired up but stalled almost 10 seconds later.
My car was stuck down a ramp in my garage since it was just not possible to start it afterwards: fuel pump running, starter cranking the engine, but it wouldn't start anymore.

I thought this was some kind of an electrical gremlin commonly found on these cars due to humidity, bad contact,.... I checked the fuses, the relays,....spark at the engine. Nothing,

Curiousmly enough, even though I tried several times to start it, there was no fuel smell in my garage. Ithought the ecu was out and the injectors were not working.

Being no expert, I had to call a garage to take the car back to a professional.

They checked the ECu, the cables, the fuses, sparks, ignition module,...nothing, until they looked at the fuel tank. Taking some fuel out of the tank on a cardboard, they tried to burn it with a lighter.

It did not fire.

There was so much water in the tank that the engine would not start. after emptying the tank and filling it with fresh fuel, it did start immediately though with a very rough idling.

I thought that these cars had a special venting carbonister valve at the front for venting (steve heath bible) and was wondering how all this water found its route in the fuel tank.

The explanation is quite simple. For whatever reason, my car is fitted with a vented fuel neck, and moreover the venting is done through a 1 cm long opening at almost the base of the filler neck right where the water was accumulating when my car was in the ramp. I have never seen this in my life. venting could have been done at the top of the filler neck: no it was at the base. ther could have been holes in the cap, no a opening at the base of the neck. Just unbelievable, but this is it.

Result is at least damaged injectors (there are being professionallly cleand right now. 6 out of 8 showed to be in a rough shape ) until something else pops up. By the way how long does it take in england (door to door) to have them professionnaly cleaned?

This mail is thus for those of you parking their car outside: avoid steep ramp nose down parking on a rainy day or check your filler neck.

If anyone has had this problem before, could you be so kind to tell me what other part could be at risk in the engine or what you did in the meantime in order to prevent water ingress in the fuel tank?

regards

[Phud]

I leave my griff outside all year, and have never had this issue, I did however have my exhausts filled with water after some very heavy rain.

Compared to you I am not parked on a slope at all.

[mezzogio]

Hi
As promised, you will find the photo of my fuel neck on my car.

You can clerly see the aperture at the base of the neck facing towards the front of the car.

Anybody is having the same conbfiguration? solution?

the funny part is that I have also the canister valve described in steve heath bible.

Any advice welcome

regards

[Loubaruch]

If you have the carbon cannister at the front of the inner wing then you should have closed circuit breathing with the only vent from your tank from the small outlet further down the neck within the boot area. This outlet connects to a rubber hose that runs along the near side of the central chassis eventually reaching the cannister. I have no idea how the earlier cars vented the tank i.e. those without cannisters, no doubt someone on here will know.

Perhaps your filler neck has been changed to something else, certainly does not seem correct.