Help please :) Fuel overflow/leak in hot weather?

[72nu-funk]

Good afternoon, i'll keep this short and sweet. After traversing through the heights of Andorra and then Des Pyrenees Catalanes earlier today (now hiding in a McDonalds car park just outside Perpignan for some sneaky free and quick internet use! :msn4: ) I had a bit of an issue earlier and would like to pick your brains.

Basically I know that on the downhills of the mountain passes the offside (i'm LHD) rear hub has been getting very hot, so i'm guessing I have a bit of a sticking issue. However, I had a van flash me, so I duly pulled over and between my not talking Spanish or French and he not talking English we managed to establish that he thought he could see fuel coming from underneath the bus when he was behind me. Deep joy I thought :shock: crawled underneath and took a good look, ran the engine up, checked all the fuel lines and found precisely nothing. So I continued on keeping as good a eye behind me for any evidence, and on the fuel guage for any dramatic loss, and then pulled in again. Crawled back under and saw a small amount of fuel on the ground from what appears to be an overflow. It's up to the right of the shock tower, towards the top inside of the arch if that makes sense.

So, question is, if you fill right to the brim and it is rather hot (35C whilst in the Pyrenees), would you be likely to get expansion from the heat and then have fuel from the overflow, especially say with a lot of left hand bends pushing the fuel back towards the filler? I also noticed there are two outlets inside the filler aperture, outside of the cap. Is there a possibility of the seal failing on the cap? Since going beneath 3/4 of a tank there has been no further signs of fuel.

Any help much appreciated. That wasn't exactly short or sweet was it! :roll:

 

[jacks906]

do you know if the rubber hoses inside have been changed, the filler neck, and two breather hoses.

any of these split will let fuel spill out with a full tank, if it was coming from the fuel cap you would notice fuel under the capped bit

if it was me keep it below 3/4 till you find the problem

 

[Trikky2]

if you fill right to the brim and it is rather hot (35C whilst in the Pyrenees), would you be likely to get expansion from the heat and then have fuel from the overflow, especially say with a lot of left hand bends pushing the fuel back towards the filler? I also noticed there are two outlets inside the filler aperture, outside of the cap. Is there a possibility of the seal failing on the cap? :roll:

Keeping it short and sweet - Yes.

 

[72nu-funk]

if you fill right to the brim and it is rather hot (35C whilst in the Pyrenees), would you be likely to get expansion from the heat and then have fuel from the overflow, especially say with a lot of left hand bends pushing the fuel back towards the filler? I also noticed there are two outlets inside the filler aperture, outside of the cap. Is there a possibility of the seal failing on the cap? :roll:

Keeping it short and sweet - Yes.

Thanks for the replies Trikky and jacks. Not had an issue since leaving the Pyrenees and driving a little less spiritedly downhill, and after a week of constant checking and not over filling, plus being back running on LPG most of the time, it would appear it was a bit of a one off