1972 SuperBeetle: Gas Tank Install

Before I re-assemble the suspension, getting the refurbished gas tank back in the car. Involves making gaskets, checking the through-body fuel pipe, cutting and installing new hose sets.

[@robertdobbs2283]

I tried to learn from your video but the places where you fast forwarded I could see nothing even when I slowed the playback speed to 0.25. I'm not at all sure what you were doing with the the fittings when rubbing them on a strip. Your knowing how to figure stuff out doesn't help people like me unless you make an effort to teach.

[@fsodn]

Hi! Thanks for watching, and thanks for commenting. Engagement drives the algorithm. I do make an effort to teach, but I balance that with the effort to make videos that people will actually watch. If I put up a 45 minute video about installing my gas tank, no one would watch it because it would be booooooooooring. The process of editing is a constant compromise between enough detail to be useful but short enough to be entertaining and have flow. I apologize for not striking that balance in a way that you found useful. If you have a section that you'd like more detail on, it's not outside the realm of possibility that I could pull up the footage and publish a more detailed video. Please let me know what you were trying to figure out, and what the time stamp is in this video, and I may try to look that up. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "the fittings when rubbing them on a strip". The silver bands that hold the hoses on the tank fittings are "hose clamps". I was just closing them with a screwdriver. I didn't think that was noteworthy enough to have a closeup of, but perhaps I'll try to do that in a future video. Thanks for watching and commenting, and I hope you continue to watch. I'm planning to have the video where I start the engine up later this spring. It was awesome to do and I think the video will be really cool.

[@robertdobbs2283]

@@fsodn Your explanation about what you need to consider to balance educational aspects with just plain boring overkill very much helped me understand your situation. Thank you. A couple points that lost me, a novice, at 0.52 "the pickup is right there" I suspect it has to do with gasoline but why the term "pickup"? Then a moment later the Outlet hose is pointed out. So, instead, I guessed this is where the gas comes out of the tank. But, then there is a view of the "sock". I assume this is filtering gasoline. But does it also come out here? At 1.40 it appeared to me that the strip of blue stuff on the bench top was being used for some purpose, perhaps to polish the surface of those fitting if it was a fine emory cloth. Maybe the blue strip wasn't part of the act in this scene. I do appreciate the efforts of those teaching / sharing tips in videos.

[@fsodn]

​@@robertdobbs2283 First the easy answer. At 1:40 or so I'm making gaskets for the sump plug for the tank, and the vent fitting that's going to go in side of the filler pipe. I'm grabbing a cylinder of bulk gasket material, cutting out a rough outline, and then cutting interior circles until the inner hole *just* fits over the center tube of whatever the gasket is supposed to fit over. So I'm not doing anything to the vent fitting or the plug at all; I'm using them as size comparisons as I cut the gaskets to fit them. The blue tape on the bench has nothing to do with the process; it's just painters tape that happened to get stuck down to the work bench.

[@fsodn]

​@@robertdobbs2283 Second, it took me a bit to dig up the real answer. When I edited this video, I'd forgotten my confusion early on when I owned my Beetle about how the internal piping in the fuel tank works. This would actually be a really good topic for a video, and I may well make that, because I'm sure other people have similar questions. From my non-expert perspective, here's a broad overview of how the tank works. The tank holds liquid gasoline, which flows down by gravity as it's used. Like a swimming pool or a sink, or funnel, the tank is shaped so that as the gas drains, it all flows to one spot at the very bottom of the tank. The low spot where the last of the gasoline ends up (or any dirt or debris in the tank ends up) is the bottom, or the "sump". For the car to be able to get the gasoline out of the tank to the engine, there must be a pipe whose end is right at the sump, so that it can pull the very last gas out of the tank if you're getting low. This is the "pickup tube". This is like having a drinking straw at the very bottom of a soda. You want the straw end to be at the bottom so you can get all the soda out. There's a round plug at the bottom of the sump. The removable plug has two purposes. You can drain out the contents of the tank if you need to. For cleaning/rinsing the tank, the plug allows the water/whatever to flow out. It also gives you access to the end of the pickup tube. The pickup tube is fixed in place; the end that's just inside the round sump plug is at a spot where it can suck basically the very last gas out. The sump plug allows you to replace the copper mesh sock that acts as a filter on the pickup tube. The sock allows gas through to the pickup tube but hopefully doesn't allow dirt or grit through. Unlike some tank designs, the pickup tube ends up going through the side wall of the tank, due to the shape of the Beetle's tank. How that work confused me too. However, I finally figured it out, and I put a sort-of answer in a blog post. But since I figured it out so long ago, I think I forgot that it was a point of confusion and didn't explicitly put it either in this video, or the earlier video in my channel where I removed the tank and was washing it out. You can find the earlier gas tank video on my channel if you want to see it. But here are the posts in my long-neglected blog about working on the gas tank the first time in 2008. Here's the blog post: craigsteffen.net/blog/2009/06/2009_06_08_22_48_00_A.php The important thing here is this diagram: craigsteffen.net/blog/2009/06/old_blogger_photos/tank08.jpg The red rectangle is the sump plug in the bottom of the tank. You can see the black pickup tube where it goes out the tank on the left, but then comes in and its end sits just above the sump plug. The green thing is the copper mesh sock.

[@fsodn]

​@@robertdobbs2283 Here's another blog post with another partial explanation of where the pickup pipe sits: craigsteffen.net/blog/2009/06/2009_06_29_00_21_00_A.php And in particular, here's a cross section with part of the pickup tube drawn in: craigsteffen.net/blog/2009/06/old_blogger_photos/tank16.jpg I hope that helps. I think I may well make a video about the interior of the tank. I'm sure you're not the only person who has similar questions.