The old whiff of petrol

[WhyTwo]

Filled the car yesterday morning to the brim (is this a bad thing?) and drove around 10 miles home. Left the car on the drive for 4 or 5 hours and then took it out again. Immediately I could smell petrol whilst moving even with the roof off. Doesn't seem to be coming from the boot.

I've seen a few threads on this and would like to check the lines etc but have no idea where to start. Is there any info on how to do this?

Oh and not sure if this is relevant but when I filled the car it was a struggle to get the filler cap open and it really 'sucked in' air when I finally got it off. Fuel gauge was reading 11 litres but I got 50 litres in(indicating that there was only 6 litres in it) so it wasn't empty but had less in than I expected.

[Jim Clark]

Hi, I had a similar problem with mine, semed to be more when it was a hot day and the engine was warm, in traffic etc. The smell was pretty strong and pretty worrying! Recently I took the car over to Matt at Sebring (top bloke) who investigated it and found the pipe to the purge valve had at some stage been replaced with the wrong part and had become flattened. He replaced the pipe and touch wood I haven't had the smell since.

As for the fuel guage not being too accurate, mine does this too! It seems to fluctuate between readings when getting low (less than quarter full) by as much as 6 litres, but after monitoring how much goes in, its always the lowest reading which is bang on. I just err on the side of caution and don't let it get below a reading of about 15 litres then i'll hopefully not run out (famous last words!). i just put this down to the personality of a TVR!

James.

[WhyTwo]

Thanks Jim. The car had it's annual service at TVR Power in June during which I'm sure the fuels hoses etc were checked but I guess I could drop Dom a call to see what he suggests. I'm interested to know how to check/replace the hoses as I've seen posts on here before about people doing just that - cant seem to find them in the search tool though

In regard to the fuel gauge, it does fluctuate a lot so I always wait until I'm on a straight flat road or stationary before I pay too much attention to the reading. And I also tend to fill up when I reach around 15 ltrs which is why I was surprised to be reading 11 and then get 50 ltrs in

[Tuscan Chick]

No real experience of this particular problem, but I would say it's about to blow up, with a massive "whoosh" at any minute.
Get out quickly little man!

[WhyTwo]

Tuscan Chick said:

No real experience of this particular problem, but I would say it's about to blow up, with a massive "whoosh" at any minute.
Get out quickly little man!

Thanks for your helpful and insightful input, as usual.

Are you a stalker?

[Daston]

I get the odd whiff of petrol, checked all my lines and it seems to be ok.

As for the fuel gauge they are very sensitive when low on fuel. I got mine down to 9 liters on the motorway and it moved from 0 - 14 litres depending on the bumps or hills.