Rover Sports Register Forum

Despite the use of guaranteed patent cures I have a number of leaks from the (battered) underside of my fuel tank. As far as I can see from the parts list it is the same tank as the 12 Saloon.
Does anyone have a useable tank in the back of the garage gathering dust?
The top of the tank is covered by the non removable boot floor with an access panel allowing you to disconnect the tank sender wires and the fuel pick up pipe. No sign of any wires for the reserve solenoid/tap. Where does that fit on the tank?
I believe the tank can be removed by simply (!!!) undoing the filler pipe/& vent pipe and the four mounting bolts and lowering it from the brackets down to the floor....sounds too good to be true!

You can expose the the top of the tank. See details here :
https://lulis.org/2018/10/06/51-%d7%92% ... %a2%d7%9f/
And yes, the way you described tank removal is correct.
There is a bug preventing me to add picture of the wiring. I will try to resolve it later

See here https://lulis.org/2018/01/11/%d7%99%d7% ... %98%d7%94/

Great pictures Luli, but mine doesn't look like that! The fuel pipe assembly has no wires to it! the only wires are to the sender! I have undone all the connections/bolts etc and will drop the tank at the weekend. I have some "slosh sealant" so will try that before looking at new tanks. I have had success with it before. The only downside is having to remove the sender (and the pick up pipe, but that will let me examine it!)download/file.php?mode=view&id=614

Update! Tank is off & sender & feed pipes & reserve switch out. The tank has clearly suffered during its long life!
Sender float has been badly bodged...soldered/plastic metal on the ends flaking off. Any advice on float repair/change?
Feed pipes...where to start!
There is one long rigid plastic pipe with gauze wrapped round the end. Pipe is good enough, but the filter is a bit Heath Robinson.
The other pipe is about 0.5" long & blocked off.
Solenoid is worse The reason there are no wires to the solenoid is that the end has been blocked off & "sealed" with some sort of epoxy (poxy?) plastic metal! No idea where the wires from the switch to solenoid have gone, I will try & trace them from the dashboard switch.
Not what I wanted to find as " one of the previous owners was an aeronautical engineer!"
OK it didn't leak & it had obviously worked fine since it was done in the 90's, but...not very Rover!
I will clean, prepare & seal the tank with POR15 from Messrs Frost. I will leave the sealing efforts that I did to the outside of the tank where they are and add a bit more, they almost worked! Combined with sealing the inside it should then be ok! I may make up a simple tank stone guard to protect it.

Good News I can get a brand new reserve unit from Four Ashes Garage at Pathlow (about 2 minutes from me!) Bad news - they have had the casting & parts made up & are primarily for Aston Martin's, and priced accordingly. although they happily make them up for Rovers, Armstrong Siddleys Etc. Quality is really beautiful, and they don't make a fortune out of them! They have made castings for two hole "oval" bases as well as the round four hole (used on the P2's)
Need to start saving!

Have you tried Mike Couldry or Mike Evans for parts?

Just thought I would share this page with you. You will see there are only 4 options with the round fixing plate and it gives the lengths of the pipes for each. I will try to remember to measure mine tomorrow
It is from a 14 but it had had the same adaptation done to it presumably because the seal had failed.
Incidentally I found the replacement filter quite easy to make with copper mesh from the internet with a flat bottom wire sewed and soldered on with a flange. The top was a penny drilled twice to slide onto the pipes. Not pretty but functional and not seen!

I measured the pipes on my unit today @ 9" and 7 3/16" approx but realise that the catalogue lengths include the threaded section too ie the overall length which I didnt get. I dont want to break the seals by detaching the pipes so sorry about that but looking at the difference in pipe lengths in each type would point towards type 78000 which is 1 1/2" diff, the closest to to my difference which is 1 13/16". You may want to check my maths!
Rob

I wouldn’t worry too much about the exact length, you really shouldn’t be letting the fuel level go low enough to have to use the reserve as it draws the dirt from the bottom of the tank and causes blocked jets in the carburettor