New Owner 2002 with a fuel leak

Bought 4x4 on Monday and discovered fuel leak under truck at the L passenger door. Smells of fuel all the time.

 

I bought it under the As is policy. I didn't think about that when I test drove it it was on empty and the gas light was on

 

Drop the skid plates and see if it is in the tank or the line.

If it is in the line forward of the tank connection, that will need to be replaced and you can forego dropping the tank for now.

If not, now is the time to drop the tank and replace the gaskets and valves and do a full inspection. If the tank gaskets have never been done, you will get the ever annoying P0404 EVAP code soon. You may as well, replace the fuel pump and the fuel sender. The fuel senders are only good for about 200kmiles and the fuel pumps last near forever but you don't want to drop the tank again for a $130 pump (always get the Denso pump).

If there is a break in the line near the tank, get the entire fuel line to tank assembly. It has rubber fuel lines that connect to the forward fuel lines and is also the metal structure that goes in the tank and holds the sender and pump. It was a bit over $100, comes with the tank gasket and a new evap sensor which both should be replaced at some point anyway (just the sensor was listed for $90...so just get the whole assembly).

There is a rollover valve and its gasket, and the large black evap valve and its gasket. Those gaskets need replacing. The large black evap valve, may be cracked, so check it over carefully...I just replaced mine.

I hope it's not the tank itself. Pretty hard to do unless some asshat took off the skid plate and went off-roading.

-Mike

 

This is the thread I made when I fixed my evap code. The part numbers for gas tank items are in the first post. Ignore the rest since you don't have to worry about an EVAP code right now.

 

Ive never looked but do third gens not have the fuel tank access hatch under the back seat? I thought they did for some reason.

 

It's only large enough to disconnect the wires and hoses and even then, you need to drop the tank down a bit to get at them for disconnection from that hole.