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Thanks again for this thread. Today was the second time I have had to fix mine. I decided to just glue the hinge pin back in place. It'll be interesting to see if and how long it holds. Seems to last me about 20k miles on its own.
samrenton41,
there is a keyway down in the hole. make sure the pin is clocked right and it should snap in place. the second picture on page 1 shows the correct orientation of the pin with the door in the closed position.
Read your post. Helped alot. It was very difficult getting to the top clip. The plastic pin holding the spring assembly was loose is there suspost to be a retaining ring on the end of that pin
Thanks so much for posting these instructions. This is a great tutorial.
It saved me a lot of wasted time and money at the dealership.
It took me a bit longer to get it out though... not to mention a few bruises & cuts on my arm trying to push those clips out. I have a spudger kit and that helped me a lot too.
well good thing i made this tutorial... mine popped loose again and i was able to follow my own instructions to fix the fuel door again.
i was pleased to see all of the follow-up comments and suggestions to improve this simple problem, and knowing i helped our F150 community out (if just a tiny bit) means a lot.
i wanted to share a 'How-to' on repairing the fuel door spring on the 09-13 F150. this was done on my 2010 FX2.
today as i finished filling up i noticed the fuel door did not spring back into place. it would not properly close and i could not diagnose the issue on the spot. luckily i was close to home and could do a little more research on what may be broken and or what i need to fix, order, or take to dealer.
Step 1: open fuel door and remove the Easy Fuel trim ring from the fuel filler neck. it should pop on and off easily.
Step 2 (optional): cover filler opening with small cloth, paper towel, etc to keep from dropping any foreign objects into filler neck.
Step 3: remove the 3 8mm bolts surrounding filler neck.
top view of housing and tab placement
bottom view of housing and tab placement
Step 4: reach up under fender and behind fuel door housing assembly and feel for 4 friction snap tabs. you'll need to pinch in the top and bottom tabs on the side opposite the hinge (back side of truck) and push to pop out the entire housing. it took me a few times of working all 4 to work it out of the lip of the fender to where it was free. you'll eventually slide it out in a hooking motion bringing the rear facing side out 1st.
proper spring connector placement with door closed
proper spring connector placement with door open
Step 5: investigate the spring and the connectors. here's where i caught a break. i have read that some of these points break off, where as mine had worked itself out of index. the hinge axle connector felt like it was sleeved over the axle pin and was not indexed or pressed into proper alignment. i released the spring off the housing side felt the action of the door hinge to the connector and simply pressed the hinge connector back down into place. insert the spring into the hinge axle side first, then snap the spring into the housing side (spring will have full tension on it). test door open/close functionality to ensure everything is working properly before re-installing.
photo shows hinge connector pressed down into place. before this photo it was about 1/2" taller and would not grab the hinge axle so no spring tension was on the door to keep it closed
Step 6 (optional): while i had everything out i cleaned the rubber seals and wiped off some of the dust and grime buildup on both the housing and fender indention where the housing sits.
Step 7: re-insert entire assembly hinge side first and wiggle pinch tabs into position.
Step 8: re-bolt the 3 8mm bolts to the fuel filler neck.
Step 9: snap the Easy Fuel ring back to the fuel filler neck.
Step 10: remove the optional (Step 2) cover from the fuel filler opening.
you're now finished ready to roll!
the internet is a great tool and forums like F150online, it's users and contributors, made my day. i had read a few posts about similar issues with the older models, yet i never had an issue with my '05 STX. today the '10 FX2 needed a simple fix. thanks to DarrenWS6 and Frisco_F150 for their original thread which gave me the inspiration for my thread.
if your assembly is broken you may choose order parts and do the install yourself. it took about 10 minutes total.
Had to do mine this weekend on my 09FX4. Took about 15 minutes.
It looks like there was an o-ring that captured the pin at one time that dry rots and snaps, then the pin rides out of the hinge.
I didn't have a right size c-clip handy so I ended up just taking a lighter to the hinge pin for 15 seconds and then flattening the end so it should not ride out.
We'll see if that holds up over time.
Thanks for the instructions... wish I would have seen them first!
This is a great write up that has saved us all a lot of money….Many thanks. I will be doing this this weekend. You know, Ford builds a great truck but it’s not perfect so that’s why we have this forum. Thanks, for sharing because sooner or later we will all experience some issue that someone else has already come across and found a way to fix it.
I signed up to the forum just to say thank you for the excellent instructions. I have a 2011 and could only feel 2 of the referenced clips. Reaching up at the correct angle, avoiding the fender supports is tricky. Anyway, thanks again. This was about a 30 minute job.
The rotating pin where the straight part of the spring attaches had risen on mine. I detached the spring, rotated the pin to where it needed to be and pushed it back in. Put the whole thing back together and I'm good.
Cool. Just be aware that unless you do something to fix the problem, you'll most likely be back in there doing it again. I had to do it twice before I took the advice here and made a permanent repair, and I haven't had to do it since.
Thanks to Pagan696 for a great post. I followed these instructions and repaired my fuel door today in about 1/2 hour.
The only part that was somewhat confusing was figuring out the "snap tabs". Maybe I'm slower than most, but I didn't know where to find these. So, in the interest of helping out someone else down the road, I've included a couple of pictures showing how to locate the tabs.
On my 2011 F150, the snap tabs were located right behind the molded indentations that you can easily see from inside the fuel door. Once I figured this out and reached up under the fender, I was able to locate the tab and just push it in while applying some pressure to the fuel door assembly. I felt the assembly loosen after pushing in the first tab and it came right out after pressing the second tab.
In the attached pictures, I am pointing to the indentations that I am talking about.
I hope this helps clarify this for someone else down the road.
Like somebody else before me, I joined just to say thank you for the great instructions.
I finally sold my '95 Bronco and bought a used 2012 F150 about four months ago. Yesterday the fuel door wouldn't close completely. By chance I was a mile from my dealer, which is an hour from my house. I stopped in and the service department said they could fix it under the comprehensive warranty I bought with the (77k miles) truck.
But today they said it wasn't covered.
So an extra four hours total dealer time and travel to be in the same broken state.
I googled and found your post, and ten minutes after touching my truck it was done.
Thank you for your clear help.
03-26-2015, 07:34 PM
