A Good Day Turned Bad

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Dam im sorry to see this. What a good looking car. I hope you find a way to get that fixed reasonably. As a body man im afraid it may be a bigger can of worms than you think. thats the qtr panel and there is no breaking point for refinishing. Plus u have the matte black graphics. My guess is the is going to be a pain in the butt. I wish u the best and gd luck
 
lenky1 said:
Dam im sorry to see this. What a good looking car. I hope you find a way to get that fixed reasonably. As a body man im afraid it may be a bigger can of worms than you think. thats the qtr panel and there is no breaking point for refinishing. Plus u have the matte black graphics. My guess is the is going to be a pain in the butt. I wish u the best and gd luck
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We will see. Luckily the decal ends about a foot before the damaged area. I feel like I have enough space to blend it in, but might take a couple of attempts.

First order of business is to determine what paint I need.
 
jonn6464 said:
Well, Rusty, nobody *needs* octane boost I don't guess. I was just trying to show the old girl some love. The really sh**ty thing is, I was gonna use the half full gas can sitting in the shop to top it off last night. But, I thought "no, just hit a gas station". I didn't even think about octane boost until I drove past O'Reillys a block up from the station. It was an impulse decision. But, yes, you are certainly correct about this being a colossal waste. Never again with the octane.
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This is the reason I never fill the tank all the way if the car is getting parked right after.
Fuel expands when sitting in a warmer place than the tank it came out of.
Not that it helps you now.
That so sucks.
 
Always, always mix octane booster with a gallon or two of gas before dumping it in the tank. Besides getting the booster better mixed with the gas, the nasty solvents are also diluted in the gas. I learned this the hard way too. When you dump the pure booster into the tank it will usually go to the bottom. And on my Road Runner it melted and nearly totally blocked off the plastic "sock" on the fuel pick-up.
 
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69_340_GTS said:
Always, always mix octane booster with a gallon or two of gas before dumping it in the tank. That way the nasty solvents are diluted in the gas. I learned this the hard way too. When you dump it in the tank it will usually go to the bottom. And on my Road Runner it melted and nearly totally blocked off the plastic "sock" on the fuel pick-up.
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Good to know. But, I have to say I don't think I'll ever put that stuff in my tank again.
 
Gas caps of the 60'-70's just weren't up to today's standards.
Only a thin rubber gasket stopped gas from coming out the cap, and onto the side of your car.
Same as the radiator overflow tube straight to the ground.
Back than, a little gas or antifreeze overflowing on the ground was no big deal.

Because of the substandard gas caps of that era, I never fill my tank up past a half tank. Actually a half tank is pretty rare in my A body's, settling for less to keep the gas off my paint.
 
Johnny Dart said:
Gas caps of the 60'-70's just weren't up to today's standards.
Only a thin rubber gasket stopped gas from coming out the cap, and onto the side of your car.
Same as the radiator overflow tube straight to the ground.
Back than, a little gas or antifreeze overflowing on the ground was no big deal.

Because of the substandard gas caps of that era, I never fill my tank up past a half tank. Actually a half tank is pretty rare in my A body's, settling for less to keep the gas off my paint.
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Yep, I'll have to start taking that approach too.
 
TrailBeast said:
This is the reason I never fill the tank all the way if the car is getting parked right after.
Fuel expands when sitting in a warmer place than the tank it came out of.
Not that it helps you now.
That so sucks.
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good point. If the fuel expands when you park it in your garage, it could overflow onto the floor of your garage, and possibly be a fire hazard, too.
 
I've been thinking about this...

Would it not be more likely that my gas cap failed in some way. Maybe old gasket or something, that allowed fuel to escape?

Am I to believe that everybody in the 60's and 70's, that lived south of Kansas either never had a full tank of gas during the summer or else had gasoline all over their driveways and garages? Due to heat expansion of the fuel? Seems crazy to me.
 
jonn6464 said:
I've been thinking about this...

Would it not be more likely that my gas cap failed in some way. Maybe old gasket or something, that allowed fuel to escape?

Am I to believe that everybody in the 60's and 70's, that lived south of Kansas either never had a full tank of gas during the summer or else had gasoline all over their driveways and garages? Due to heat expansion of the fuel? Seems crazy to me.
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I am not sure, but I can offer my experience. I got my 70 Dart at 15 (non vented cap, with the fuel filler neck vented through trunk floor, factory) and I drove that car daily throughout highschool and never had fuel spit out like that, UNLESS I filled it.

And what I mean is after the fuel pump clicked off, about a second later fuel would spit out. Never really cared because car was in primer. Other than that,I never experienced fuel randomly expanding.

Now that it's almost roadworthy again with nice paint, I am worried. Was it just because my filler neck vent hose was cracked?
 
jonn6464 said:
Ok, good tip. I'll see if the paint place has the scanner. It's a small town store, so who knows.
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Almost all PPG distributors have a scanner, and my local NAPA store is a Shermin-Willams distributor and they also have one.
If you have a bigger paint store in your area, their techs are also most likely certified from the distributor and will be able to match the paint.
 
jonn6464 said:
I've been thinking about this...

Would it not be more likely that my gas cap failed in some way. Maybe old gasket or something, that allowed fuel to escape?

Am I to believe that everybody in the 60's and 70's, that lived south of Kansas either never had a full tank of gas during the summer or else had gasoline all over their driveways and garages? Due to heat expansion of the fuel? Seems crazy to me.
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I dunno. Did you top up the tank? In other words, after the filler nozzle "clicked off", did you continue to fill a "bit more" to round up to an even amount of money?
OR,
I' m not knowledgeable on how these nozzles know when to shut off, perhaps the nozzle you were using was an outlier and was a delayed shut off .
or when you parked was the car sitting on an angle with the right side lower than the left?
Also gas formulations are much different than they were in 70. Quite possibly the fuel then was much more forgiving towards the paint, then.
 
rustycowll69 said:
I dunno. Did you top up the tank? In other words, after the filler nozzle "clicked off", did you continue to fill a "bit more" to round up to an even amount of money?
OR,
I' m not knowledgeable on how these nozzles know when to shut off, perhaps the nozzle you were using was an outlier and was a delayed shut off .
or when you parked was the car sitting on an angle with the right side lower than the left?
Also gas formulations are much different than they were in 70. Quite possibly the fuel then was much more forgiving towards the paint, then.
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Yeah, I don't know how they "sense" when to shut off. Maybe there was fuel up in the filler neck at that point. Parked it on a level surface. I'll chalk it up to bad luck and a learning experience. Sucks balls though.
 
jonn6464 said:
Ok, good tip. I'll see if the paint place has the scanner. It's a small town store, so who knows.
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That totally sucks...I guess my first question is how new/old is the paint. If it relatively new and single stage acrylic/other.... dont take much solvent to do that.
Looks like a thin color coat as well, might make it easier to featheredge and prep reshoot quarter panel after determining which type of paint your dealing with..



Dave
 
plumkrazee70 said:
Dang... So what do you do if you want to take a road trip? Meaning, stop for gas every 150 miles?
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You fill up on the way out instead of filling up and then parking the car.
Never happens just filling up to continue a drive because it gets used faster than it expands.

jonn6464 said:
I've been thinking about this...

Would it not be more likely that my gas cap failed in some way. Maybe old gasket or something, that allowed fuel to escape?

Am I to believe that everybody in the 60's and 70's, that lived south of Kansas either never had a full tank of gas during the summer or else had gasoline all over their driveways and garages? Due to heat expansion of the fuel? Seems crazy to me.
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It's been a thing throughout my entire life.
My Dad was the first one to bring it up to me decades ago, but I also suspect something unusual about the paint that was used in this case.
I have seen and had gas do that before and not eat the paint off, but maybe discolor it a little.
 
TrailBeast said:
You fill up on the way out instead of filling up and then parking the car.
Never happens just filling up to continue a drive because it gets used faster than it expands.



It's been a thing throughout my entire life.
My Dad was the first one to bring it up to me decades ago, but I also suspect something unusual about the paint that was used in this case.
I have seen and had gas do that before and not eat the paint off, but maybe discolor it a little.
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Well, the consensus seems to be it was the octane booster, not the gasoline.
 
mycuda said:
That totally sucks...I guess my first question is how new/old is the paint. If it relatively new and single stage acrylic/other.... dont take much solvent to do that.
Looks like a thin color coat as well, might make it easier to featheredge and prep reshoot quarter panel after determining which type of paint your dealing with..



Dave
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I would say minimum of 15 yrs old for the paint. Was my fathers car, before he passed away, and there has been no painting in my recent memory.
 
I had the same thing happen to my 66 Dart. Was pouring some ethanol free gas in it from a gas can and some ran down the side. Same "aw ****" thing moment happened to me. The paint was single stage lacquer from the late 90's.
 
jonn6464 said:
Well, the consensus seems to be it was the octane booster, not the gasoline.
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Problem with that is we don't see a bunch of cars around with that same area of paint removed and there are a lot of octane booster users and people that overflow their tank even at the pump.
I'm not sold on that being the only factor here.
I really suspect it's a real thin coat of laquer like some mentioned along with the fuel being able to sit there soaking in.

In the end it really doesn't matter now what caused it, but what did gets taken car of.

That sucks.
 
Oldmanmopar said:
Put a vent/overflow tube on the fill tube neck right below the cap copy the 70 style run it back down the fill tube and under the floor.
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^^Exactly what I was getting at earlier^^

The charcoal system "can" maintain some pressure in the tank. The (proper) camp that goes with the evap system is a "pressure/ vacuum" cap meaning it will "blow off" if needed, either for pressure or vacuum. With the earlier system, there is NO pressure, as the vent IN THE FILLER NECK is always open to relieve any pressure, and ACTS AS A SIPHON to keep liquid below the level of the cap

I realize "too little too late" DAMN I'd be pissed!!
 
I just want to mention, I had an incident once with my 76 w200 many years ago. It may have been caused by my "topping the tank off". The charcoal canister is full.of like BB sized balls of charcoal in it. My truck stalled on me, and was running badly, when I pulled the air cleaner off there were these little, gray-colored balls spilling out of the bowl vent. When I pulled the carb apart it was full of that stuff. I don't know what caused the canister to spill its guts, but I had a suspicion it was due to overfilling the tank. So just a word of caution there
 
I had the same thing happen to me, the fuel went between the paint and the car and lifted it off. No booster, just gas. I don't know who painted the car but after that I assumed it was a cheap paint job. Never fixed it and sold the car.
 
I don’t think that happens to two part urethane paint.

I think you have cheap lacquer paint. I hope you figure out what paint you have, and get the paint type sorted out, could careless about the octane boost.

two part urethane paint is what you need to protect your car (like a 2 part epoxy base coat with sealer over it) otherwise your paint will not last as long.

old lacquers and enamels had other chemicals like zinc chromate or lead to strengthen them. There is a 1963 ford fair lane next door burning every year in the Texas sun with decent paint-it’s amazing really, versus 1984-85 U.S. automotive paint, cheap lacquers and cheap enamels.
 
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