How to drain fuel tanks

[tigernewbie]

Hi all. What is the best way to completely drain the fuel tanks on a Tiger? I mean, the best way apart from driving the car! Thanks in advance.

[Eric and Bonnie and Bonnie Gibeaut]

I would siphon out as much as possible and then disconnect the fuel line under the trunk floor and let the remainder of the petrol drain into a drip pan.
Do this outside and not near any ignition source! Eric

[mikephillips]

There is actually a drain plug in the bottoms of the tanks. If it hasn’t been filled in by a previous owner there should be a pulgged hole in the flat area at bottom of the fender behind each rear wheel. The plug has a slotted head for a large screwdriver. That being said, don’t be surprised if they won’t come out, particularly if they’ve never been out since manufacture. If they’re stuck about al you can do is what Eric said and try not to spill the dregs left in the tanks.

[Eric and Bonnie and Bonnie Gibeaut]

I totally forgot about the drain plugs Mike. Most will be rusted solid by now I bet-that is assuming the access holes are not covered with Bondo! Eric

[mikephillips]

Yea, probably won’t work, but worth checking since he could get lucky.

[tigernewbie]

Yeah, I hope to be able to have a look tomorrow. My Tiger is a West Coast car with no rust ever, so I might get lucky here. But I am not sure how this works. I understood that I should remove a bolt from the body, which will allow access to a large flathead screw/bolt, which is the drain plug in the tank. But since the tanks sit up in the wings, does this mean the gas would pour into the wing and then out through the bolt hole in the body?

[Joel & Karen Griffin]

We just pump them dry with the fuel pump.

[tigernewbie]

I’ve considered that, but had a nagging image in my head of the garage burning down. How do you do that (safely)?

[Joel & Karen Griffin]

First of all we have a dash 6 an fuel line (3/8"). we disconnect at the carb and use a length of dash 6 and a union and run the fuel into a 5 gallon container
we also pull the fuse in the panel for the coil(ignition) so only the pump runs,we have done this several times to set the fuel guage at empty(which is programable) and we should have said we have a Painless fuse panel with everthing on its own circut.

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