Gas tank blew a gallon of gas out, 4 feet stream while filling it

Exciting day today at the gas pump. Was pumping gas into the 87 Waggy XJ, heard and felt a thump, 15 seconds of wondering what it was I then felt back pressure on the gas handle finally, turned it off, and pulled it back, and it got tossed back at me while gas blew out, 4 feet out of the tank and threw a good gallon of gas on the fuel pump and me.

Still not sure what caused it. I think the vacuum vent and shut off on the pump failed, built pressure in my tank..... made the tank thump as a wall expanded, then reversed and threw gas out of the tank when I pulled the nozzle back. My tank was only 3/4ths full when it happened.

Never seen anything like it before!!!

Any other ideas what happened, clues or similar experience here?

Drove it home, no leaks so far, knock on wood!

It's Jeep mating season. There must have been another Jeep at the gas station as well. Your Jeep was trying to attract the attention of the other Jeep.

I would think your tank vents should have prevented the expansion.
Did you cap the vent lines to the EVAP canister ?

Sounds like a venting issue to me. I'd check to make sure your XJ Gas Tank Vent isn't clogged.

I had something similar happen the other day on my way back from Houston.

Filled up, and when I pulled the nozzle out after it shut off, a bunch of gas ran out of the filler neck.

On my last fill up here in Dallas (after that) I was kinda gun shy about it so I pulled it out slowly (hehe) and it seemed like it was gonna do it again.

Clogged vent?

WB9YZU said:

I would think your tank vents should have prevented the expansion.
Did you cap the vent lines to the EVAP canister ?

Click to expand...

No but those lines are tiny, the venting while filling should flow back into the 2.5-3" ID outer hose, back into the vacuum recovery, which I suspect was defective. The filler pipe has about 1/2" hole above the larger gas filler hole.

http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/apcp/vaporrecovery/vaporrecovery101.htm

Stage II vapor recovery is what we have here.

Typical handle-nozzle asy:







http://www.mtrinc.com/gasoline_vapor_recovery.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_recovery

Filled up with Chevron at a different station yesterday. No problem.

The worst part is you had to pay for all that gas on the ground

--Andy

Mike, I had seen a local news report around here that there either was a defect in some of those nozzles from the manufacturer, and that around STL, they are actually considering getting rid of ours, as the "recovery" method they use actually doesn't work, thus negates using them. But that makes for great business for the local manufacturer that is making a different designed unit, that doesn't have the "pull it back to engage" style nozzles. Glad you or the other persons on the other side of your pump weren't smoking, or we'd be reading about you..... Seems like an equipment failure on the pump side, not the tank side. The nozzle is supposed to "sense" the rapid accumulations of vapors as the tank fills, and then is supposed to shut the flow off. Sounds like it didn't and thus caused your issue....I thought I smelled 87 Octane in here.....lol

Jeff