Another Fuel tank thread - 71 Demon

72bluNblu said

Neat and all but none of that really helps the OP or explains any issue he may have.

Maybe the conversion information I mentioned was unnecessary, but my point wasn't about the conversion per se. It was about the fact that the problem that the OP is having with the trunk floor seal shouldn't be a thing. The trunk floor seal itself was the same from at least '70-74, which covers several emissions changes with regard to the tank. The hole in the trunk floor pan didn't move, the same pan is used '67-'76. The filler tube itself didn't really change either, certainly not from '70 to '71. The cap changed, but the tube was still mounted inside the trunk, the angle didn't change, and the hole in the quarter wasn't moved from '70 to '71 (same exact quarter panel was used). Or for '72 for that matter, or even '74 even though those quarters had other changes. While the filler tube was moved from inside to outside of the quarter panel and the mounting of the cap was changed, nothing else regarding the filler tube changed from '71 to '74 for the same model car. Otherwise I couldn't have used a '74 Dart filler tube on my '71 Dart without running into the same issue. And lots of people change those 1 year only filler tubes out for other model years because of the scarcity of the caps.

So my point was that even if the filler hole in the tank moved with that emissions change in '71, nothing else did. Which means the factory and everyone else was able to use the same trunk floor seal despite that change.

Click to expand...

Thx to all...some pics because we all know it didn't happen without pics!! Maybe a little background on the car too. I bought it from the original owner - even got all the handwritten order forms when his mother ordered it for him! The car literally has 37k miles on it - had 34k when I bought it in 84. The car held its value as I essentially paid him what his mom had bought it for new!
Ok, here's the gas cap. Looks like a 71 to me.


Here's the original filler neck opening. It has the flat piece of metal that starts down the tube near the tip and sticks out the bottom about an inch.


Here's the original tank (black) and the 11D new tank. Hard to see in the pic but the filler pipe opening is close to 1/2" farther rearward in the orig tank. The opening angle for them matches so no issue there.


Lastly, here's a shot of the original fill tube and a new one from Van's. Note the new one is about 1/2" shorter even though the neck by the cap end is identical. (You can't see the bend in them by the opening due to how they are laying.) The seal looks like it would still be on the new tube but mighty close to the end!! And sliding the tank left or right is tough as the exhaust pipes want to hit the tank if you do that.


I was talking to someone at Van's who was telling me about all of this when I called about the fill pipe length. He got me to measuring and I found what he told me about the 11D and 11E tanks to be true when I ran into the fill pipe location issue. He measured another fill pipe length for me and it was the same as what they had sent me. I called Megaparts who was all out of them but said they get theirs from Van's anyway!

Anyhow, I share all of this so others can also learn from your collective knowledge. Thx ahead of time!!