If you've never played the game Shadow Warrior, I highly recommend that you do.  Buy a copy now!

Technology may have moved on since 1997, but Lo Wang and his quips are second-to-none - the title of this article comes from him hearing something dripping or filling with water, shortly followed by him saying to himself "Hmmm....something flooding, or dinosaur taking piss..."  Hilarious and top marks to 3d Realms.

That explains the title of the article, but doesn't explain what I'm talking about.   Fortunately I'm not talking about a coolant or oil leak, but a leak none-the-less.  The last time the petrol tank was leaking it was down to corrosion eating away at the tank's union for the pump's hose.  Read on...

About a fortnight ago, I was woken up at an ungodly hour by my brother - he was desperately trying to get me to move as he'd noticed an enormous puddle of petrol on the ground under the Cossie.

Great.

This followed a nice long weekend away, visiting relatives at the Center Parcs resort near Nottingham.  It's sort of my own fault really, but I'm still annoyed that Nottinghamshire's highway maintenance crews leave bits of things on the road.

On our way home down the M1, there was a bang.  Engine carried on running, wheels kept turning, brakes still worked, didn't think anything of it.  Might have been something else nearby.

When I was alerted to the Saff's new-found incontinence, I immediately had a feeling that the bang we heard was going to be expensive.  A quick look underneath showed a great big dent in the tank - something had obviously bounced off it, and had split the tank.  Petrol was dribbling out, so we quickly stuffed a bucket underneath while I formulated a plan.  It was Sunday, I'd put probably my last 20 quid in the tank 80 miles earlier (or in a bucket, depending on how you look at it), and I needed a new tank - nowhere will sell me a tank for a 19 year old Sierra on a Sunday, let alone be open for me to collect it.

The only place open for me on a Sunday was Halfords.  Despite various urban 'myths' of Halfords, I see the place for what it is - if you know exactly what you need, and need it off the shelf quickly, go there.  For other bits that involve the salesman understanding your needs, go elsewhere.  It may cost a bit more, but where else is open on a Sunday?  And with super unleaded dribbling out of the tank, I needed a quick fix.

We picked up some stop-leak, and a hose clamp.  The hose clamp turned out to be useless as it didn't open far enough, but the stop-leak was promising.  In order to apply it, the drip needed to be stopped - that meant draining the tank.  I thought there was only 2 gallons (9 litres for the metric people!) in the tank.  A 3 gallon bucket should've been enough.  I promise I'll fix the fuel gauge soon!  It turned out there was actually 7 gallons in the tank!  As the first bucket was filling up I was getting bored waiting, so decided to speed up the process.  I was well impressed at how much of a vaccuum was in there...as soon as I opened the filler cap it just came pouring out of the tank into the second bucket.

Eventually, once the tank was empty, I set to work.  Axle stands and a trolley jack are IMMENSELY useful while working under a car - my advice is to use them!

The area around the half inch split didn't need cleaning - the petrol had done that already.  It just needed drying off.  I wiped off the petrol, mixed up a bit of stop-leak, then smeared it on.  The packet says 'completely dry in 10 minutes', so after I'd smeared it on, I left it, and applied a second 'coat' later.

Things sound like they've gone smoothly so far, don't they?  Well they didn't.  The first mission was to get the fuel hose off the tank.  All of my screwdrivers simply destroyed the screw in the jubilee clip as if it were made from play-doh.  Before I lost my patience my brother set to work with a pair of pliers - he was successful!!  Gripping the crappy screw with them he was able to turn it until it was loose enough to pull the hose off.  Cars, eh?  Who'd have 'em?

Once the patch had dried and the fuel pump hose reconnected, we needed to get those 7 gallons of fuel back in the tank. Unfortunately the buckets weren't exactly sterile, so we needed some creative thinking.  With the use of a funnel, a 1 litre jug, and some paper coffee filters we were able to decant the buckets a gallon at a time into a fuel can, then into the tank.  Probably not how the rest of the world would do it, but it worked, and no flora or fauna entered the tank, so a job well done!

Beginning to end, I reckon the whole job took 4 to 5 hours, but it didn't seem like it at the time!

So far, tha patch is holding, but I'm still on the lookout for a new tank.  If you have an idea where I can get one from, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .