Diesel Tank Leak

A month or so after getting the truck home for the first time, we borrowed a warehouse from a close friend so we could re-install the spare tire rack. The builder put it on so we could get our two spare tires home, but they did so off centre.

So the reason for the warehouse was so we could remove and re-install the rack away from the freezing temperatures outside. While indoors, we discovered two leaks coming from the truck. One was the hose that went from the engine up front, to the hydronic system in the back. See Engine Hose Leak for that story.

The other leak was from the right side fuel tank. This is the one that the builder cut a big hole into on the top side, so they could install the fuel pickups for the boilers and generator. They welded a ring plate into the tank, and then screwed a flat round plate onto that. The problem was that the genius putting the bolts in obviously hadn't heard of a little thing call thread sealer. They just put the 1/4-20 bolts in unsealed. So as the fuel sloshed around in the tank and hit the underside of this plate, capillary action pulled the diesel up the bolt body and out onto the top of the tank. The brainiac didn't even put thread sealer around the 1/4" pipe plug that filled an unused pickup hole. The result is quite obvious in the photos below. Again, we had to redo it.