Another Team Door handle?

[Jim Haseltine]

Well I missed this afternoons event, being involved in the awful task of
investigating weird readings on the fuel gauge in my mother's Rover Metro.
Now, if you've got a container that is intended to hold petrol where would
any right-mined person put the gauge sender/fuel pickup? Top, side or
bottom?

How about the top? No, can't do that because the tank is mounted under the
floor.
Could do, could have an access plate under the rear seat. No, far too
simple.

How about the bottom - dead easy to get to. No, don't be silly - you'd have
to drain the tank if you wanted to change the sender.

Lets put it in the side.

But in such a position that you can't remove the sender with the tank in
place because the tank is too close to the body.

So according to the manual, you have to drain the tank, remove the front
mounting bolts and loosen the rear mounting bolts to let the tank to drop
far enough that you can remove the sender.

But strangely not mentioned is - that the rear mounting bolts are hidden
above the rear subframe and can only be reached by some strange
multi-jointed tool and once you have managed to loosen them you'll discover
that the handbrake cable is clipped to the tank and once you've released it
you'll find that the exhaust stops you being able to remove the sender unit,
which by the way, is held in place by a retaining ring that can only be
removed with a special tool and then only when the car is brand new - once
it has been through 10 years of British winters it's rusted so tightly in
place that you have to prise it out with a screwdriver and fit a new one
which you can't buy at 3pm on a Sunday.

What a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.....


Jim Haseltine