Nearly killed myself in the Dart today :(
 

It was 95F outside, I was happily driving with the top down... then.. at the gas station as I was trying to fill her up...

Attachment 14779
Attachment 14780

The exhaust heat combined with the 95F weather had melted the paint on the side of the gas tank as well as the filler neck seal...

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...Cooper/026.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...Cooper/028.jpg

Here is whats left of the filler neck seal...
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Attachment 14782

:(

Glad I wasnt smoking at that time (not that I am a smoker...)

Syed

I don't believe heat was the cause of that. I don't know what did, whether there was something in the fuel that disintegrated the seal, or whether the seal was a poor quality "repop" or just what.

What happened is, that something caused the seal to leak, the gasoline itself damaged the paint.

There's been thousands of Mopars with the very same type filler neck seal drive hundreds (millions) of miles and did not suffer that sort of damage. There are places in the US (death valley, example) where the temp gets way higher than 95F

Not a good idea to smoke when your filling up you car. So what happened after you sprung a leak?

I agree that the gasoline was melting the tank and not heat (although at 1st I thot it might be caused by exhaust heat). I also think I saw some left over silicone on the old filler neck sealant... Hmm... someone was trying to be smart-a$$ when fitting the tank before...

Dammn, I thought for sure you were going to post pix of a crispy Dart ragtop. SOOO Glad that didn't happen.

j