Over the past two years, I have experienced an ongoing issue getting my 35.7 gallon tank to fill to the brim. The pumps always shut off 4 gallons short of full.

Over the last two days, my son and I added a 3" PA Body lift to my truck. When I was reassembling the filler neck to the truck, I dropped a 7mm socket into the neck opening and down it went... into the fuel tank. So. We lifted the bed off the truck to gain access to the fuel pump, moved the pump to the side, and extracted the socket from the fuel tank. No problem.

Since filling my truck with fuel has always been such a pain, I examined the filler neck opening into the tank and found the float. Anybody, please tell me what the h*ll this float is for ? I want to simply grab it with a needle nose plier and pull the damn thing out. My son is a tech and advises against it. Do we have any other techs who can tell me what the benefit to this damn thing is.

 

I don't have an answer about the float.

But, oh man, what are the odds you could drop the socket & have it go in the worst possible spot? For me, as you, about 100%

 

I think it is to prevent fuel splashback during filling.

 

Ding ding.

 

Yea, I remember the days of trying to top off the tank and getting that quarter gallon of gas belching out of the tank at ya.

Im still in the habit of washing the truck after I fill it.

 

Aint the float supposed to read your fuel level, gurantee if you take it out your fuel gauge wont work any more. . I know cuz my rangers fuel gauge stop working and had to replace it, float had a hole in it from old age.

 

You are talking about the anti-siphon float? That also tends to eliminate splash out.
You really don't want to pull that out.
Are you sure you are not over filling it?
The owner's manual lists a 26 a 27 a 30 and a 35.7 gallon tank.

On about a hundred posts I have seen people get two three gallons more than capacity by rocking the truck and coaxing more gas in it.

My tank is the 26, but when I first got it I was putting 27 or more gallons in it. Then I discovered I was over topping it.
Like a lot of cars/trucks they leave a lot of expansion room in the tank as the fuel is quite cold when you pull it from the ground thus it will expand up to 5 percent when it warms up.

In ancient times (before sealed tanks) it was normal to see a freshly topped up car start to fountain gas out of the tank after being parked in a hot parking lot.
We were always taught to fill it up after shopping because if you filled it up before then parked it in a hot supermarket lot it would spill gas. It used to be a common desert problem.

Now their sealed.
Upside is these sealed tanks pollute less, and don’t ‘P*ss’ all over the hot parking lot.
Downside is they can be over filled and then rupture or contaminate the evaporation system.
Chris

 

That float/anti-drainback valve is also there so if the truck were to get into an accident and happen to flip on its side or on the roof, it wouldn't dump 30 gallons of gas on the ground and start a fire.