First,
remove the plastic splash shield that covers the underside
of the driver's side rear corner. It's partially held in
place with a few of those annoying push-in plastic fasteners
With
the shield off, you can see the two large diameter hoses
that go into the driver's side rear upper portion of the
tank. The one we're concerned with is the rear hose, which
is the filler vent hose. You need to remove that rear hose
from the tank by loosening the hose clamp, and then pulling
the hose off.
How
easy or difficult this job is from this point depends on
how sadistic the assembly line worker was that installed
the hoses. In my case, the bolts for the hose clamps were
impossible to reach without dropping the gas tank about
an inch or so. If your clamps can be loosened without dropping
the tank, it's even easier. But if you need to drop your
tank (like I did), it's pretty simple. There are 3 bolts
that hold the front of the tank to the crossmember, and
4 that hold the rear of the tank to the rear frame crossmember.
Note that on the rear, in addition to the four nuts you
need to remove, there are 2 additional fasteners with long
bolts on them. You don't need to (or want to) remove the
nuts on those two extra fasteners.
Once
you've got that rear hose removed, you can now see the smaller
plastic hose inside the vent fitting (on the tank). You've
got to remove that smaller inner plastic hose.
I
found that needle-nosed vice grips worked best at getting
that tube out. It's a tight fit, and takes some effort to
remove.
Here's
the hose removed. It was just over 9.5" long.
I
cut mine down to 2.75" long. This was enough so that
when it was re-inserted into the tank's vent fitting, it
wouldn't extend much beyond the fitting into the tank. I
was thinking about not re-installing this hose at all, but
I heard (but can't confirm) that this hose adds some rigidity
to the connection on the tank, so that the hose clamp is
less likely to hurt that fitting.
After
cutting down to size, I put the tube back inside the vent
fitting on the tank. Since it's a tight fit, I tapped it
in with a rubber faced dead blow hammer (a rubber mallet
would have been fine too).
Now,
just reverse all your steps for re-assembly, and enjoy the
extra capacity.
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