Body lift update:
About a week and a half after the body lift was done my '99 decided to puke about 2 gallons of fuel out of somewhere above the tank one day when I went to fill it up. From then on it started smelling like raw fuel around the DR side. No apparent leaks, no drips, no damp spots, nothing.
The body lift has about 1500 miles on it now (maybe a little more) so I wanted the tech to check and make sure everything was still tight and there were a couple misc things that needed done so while he had it I had him check the problem with the raw fuel smell.
Originally, we were concerned that there was a problem with the fuel filler hose as one end of the hose is a little big and needs to be clamped down tightly to prevent leaks but it turned out that that wasn't the problem.
There is a 1/2-3/4" or so sized hose that goes from the top, back side of the fuel filler assembly (on the fender) and winds back down to the fuel tank. Not too far past the nipple on the assembly, the hose had cracked almost entirely in half.
The tech isn't sure if the hose was stretched too far when the body lift was done or the hose was just brittle or if the hose is just flat too short or "D - All of the above". Its pretty well hidden and unless you know its there it isn't obvious and its easily overlooked during (and after) the body lift.
There are a couple things here that I thought it would be good to note ...
1) Even though according to the FSMs (and the tech confirmed this) that SHOULD have popped one or more OBD codes, it didn't. Yea, big surprise there.
So, don't expect an 'electronic' indication of a problem.
2) If that hose becomes disconnected or in my case cracked almost in half, the automatic kick-off on the fuel filler handle of the gas station pump
will not kick off. Lack of pressure build up in the tank when the tank is almost full. I already knew this and belching gas all over the ground should have tipped me off, but I'd forgotten about that hose as well.
3) Based on documentation from and discussions with redraif, I'm pretty dang sure the problem is that the hose is too short. It took 1500 miles and a good bit of tossing the vehicle around making sure everything was solid before the problem cropped up so this might not show up on other vehicle for a while.
4) This hose is present on all Gen 1 Sports. I don't know if this is present on the Gen 2 Sport. The fuel filler assembly on the Gen 1 is not the same as on the Gen 2, so ....
I strongly recommend that if you've done a body lift and were not aware of this hose, that you go back and recheck to either confirm that the hose doesn't exist on your vehicle or that there aren't any problems or potential problems with the existing hose.
Any issue with this hose as with the fuel filler hose (or any of the other hoses on, from or to the tank) are a potential serious fire hazard.Edward