How to drain a Toyota hilux tank?

Answer 1

I recently did the unforgettable and filled my Diesel Toyota Hilux Double Cab Pickup (2004 model) with unleaded petrol. I realized my stupid mistake before starting the engine, so it wasn't run at all with the unleaded fuel in the tank. I though I would contribute here as I always look for answers and would like to put something back in return. So forgive my blabbering on and any spelling mistakes...

To drain the fuel tank of this vehicle:

Syphon out as much of the fuel as possible into Gerry Cans (observing your local bylaws & environmental requirements). I used a cheap, plastic hand pump syphon. Once you have removed as much fuel as possible....Time to get under the pickup!

Before I started on this job I disconnected the negative terminals of both the engine batteries - just in case...

There is a fuel tank guard under the fuel tank that needs to be removed. It is held on by 6 bolts (you will need a 12mm socket & wrench with 6" extension bar for these), 3 at the front of the guard & 3 at the rear. Loosen the outer 2 bolts on the front & rear of the tank guard, then the 2 centre bolts (being careful not to let the guard drop onto you (it weights about 6kg). To my surprise, there was a drain plug at the rear end of the fuel tank, this saved me a lot of time as I did originally plan on removing the whole tank (imagine how long this write up would have been!). It's a good idea to get a stiff brush around the drain plug to remove the muck and rust powder before commencing. I used an adjustable wrench to loosen the drain plug. Once you have broken the seal (cracked the nut) get a low profile container to drain the excess fuel into.

I'm sure you can figure the rest out for yourself but one thing I did notice was that with my double cab being slightly raised at the rear, the residual fuel had congregated at the front end of the tank and with the drain plug being at the rear end, there was still a few liters of fuel floating around. I jacked up the front of the pickup to level the tank up and got the rest of the fuel out like that.

Assembly is the reversal of the above (as they say in the car manuals :>)). I must confess that I did loose a bit of petrol during the process of removing the drain plug so in hind sight I should have had a few old rags & a piece of cardboard ready to catch the drips. I will bear this in mind but I hopefully wont make the same STUPID mistake twice!!!

Finally, once everything was back together and tidied up, I chucked in a few liters of diesel from a Gerry can and let the engine turn over for a few minutes and monitored the idling. REMEMBER! DIESEL - DIESEL - DIESEL...

Update: A week later & around 300 miles of traveling, no problems what so ever.