fuel leak

[Woody3466]

I filled the car with fuel today and as walking back towards it, noticed fuel dripping from the underside, just in front of rear wheels.
I did the sensible thing of ignoring it and continued the journey. On each subsequent stop the dripping was noticeably less until we got home, about half a tank left, and no noticeable dripping.
The car does smell petrolly and always has, my wife thinks this is more noticeable of late. We've never noticed the fuel dripping before.....

[flying farmer]

If it was dripping out of the pipes that exit the boot where you saw it dripping from, its possible you spilled some down the water drain which is between the outer cap and the rubber seal, or it was over full and came out of the breather pipe which exits in the same place.
It is always worth removing the plywood from on top of the tank and checking the blanked off pipe on top of the sender unit is still sealed

[jbuckl]

On later sanction cars the nylon to steel fuel pipe had about 4” of rubber and two fuel pipe clamps at this location.

check those… they are just after the nylon pipe exits the rear bulkhead panel.

Earlier cars had a longer amount of nylon pipe though.

it’s possible to have nylon all the way from the pump to filter.

However it’s advantageous to also add fiberglass and silicone sleeving to this, underneath , so as to protect it from exhaust heat…. It does run close.

other than these items, it is possible the tank has a pinhole.

The stag fuel tank is easily accessible and easy to remove too.

ideally when nearly empty though.

its easy to see any concerns/ corrosion externally when removed and internally via the sender opening.

[Woody3466]

thanks, I'm pretty sure it wasn't overfilled, so will have a look at the pipes.
I have checked this morning and there is no dripping at all, tank is over half full.

[paul jorgensen]

If your car has always smelt of petrol I would do as suggested and remove the boards, check the tank for pin holes. Many years ago not long after I purchased my car I had the same issue, I had to replace the tank as it had corroded, it was 9 years old.