You might think that cutting a big hole in the floor of your car just inches away from your fuel tank is a bad idea. First off, what if you lose a golf club through your now perforated trunk floor? Second off, what if you set the whole thing ablaze with the sparks from your cutting wheel? Still, despite the danger, thousands of Americans “modify” their floor pans, and it’s because fixing their cars the right way just isn’t worth the time.
“Wait a minute, are you trying to tell me that your ex-girlfriend dumped you for Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit and then went on to land a role in Fast & Furious 3?! This is so great!” an empathetic Matt Hardigree, The Autopian’s publisher, told me last week. Was I at all upset about this being brought up numerous times while we were in LA at the Auto Show last month? Nope! That story was from 23 years ago and I’ve had a long time to get over it. Plus it is actually pretty funny in hindsight!
“We should use this ex-girlfriend story as an Autopian trivia question at the LA Auto Show, are you cool with that? Actually do you have any other weird ex-girlfriend stories that would make a good car trivia question as well?”
I agreed to the first question because, I mean, what’re the odds right? I didn’t have time to tell Matt about the other time I was (almost) dumped over something car-adjacent (since things were moving pretty fast last week), so I’ll instead use the opening of this piece to do so.
Virginia Is For Lovers…Of Pontiacs…With Holes In Them
During the Summer of ’21 I had been looking for a replacement 4th Gen Pontiac Trans Am (in green, only) to take the place of the silver Firebird Formula that I had sold that prior spring. I’ve had an on-again, off-again love affair with both those Trans Ams for 20+ years now and this was to be my sixth one…if only I could find it.
Well, during the hottest peak of that summer, I finally found the car I had been searching for, sunken into a backyard behind a double-wide in southern Virginia. It was a green ’94 Trans Am GT with T-Tops, and it was for sale for $1800. The car was about four hours away from The Evil Shitbox Wrenching Lair (under that volcano) in Wilmington, NC, but that was no concern.
Why? Well, my trusty $400 2004 4.7 V8 Dodge Durango is my ride-or-die tow rig and would easily be able to tow the Trans Am (with its lightweight fiberglass/composite hood, fenders and hatch) back to The Cape Fear. The only problem was that the radiator had walked off the job that summer, and the Durango was running warm. Not hot, but a worrisome level of warm.
The AC had also stopped working. This meant that if I was going to tow a 2,000lb car transport trailer and a 4200lb car seven hours round trip on I-95 at 70MPH, then the heat would have to be on full blast in order to give the Radiator a bit of help from the under-dash heat exchanger.
All in 100 degree temps.
Luckily my traveling companion (big shout out to Rei-Rei) was an absolute trooper (not the Isuzu kind) and was able to listen to my music (she’s not a big fan) and get furnace-blasted with heat for seven hours without completely going ballistic on me. We actually made the most of it and had a pretty fun adventure! That’s what destination car-purchases are all about.
Speaking of having fun, we encountered some local Southern VA fauna along the way:
This dude’s place was in such a middle-of-nowhere rural area that we encountered such rural-tastic celebratory decorations as the below “engine-in-a-tree“.
Rei Rei did tell me that she was very close to calling it quits with me over that radiator failure and subsequent tow-torture though. But she didn’t! What a gal! Once we were back in The Port City of Wilmington, a few Trans Am GT-celebratory rounds of Stanley Tucci Negronis and a nice dinner out at Golden Corral and all was well.
Ok, so there’s the other car-adjacent, (near) dumping story, but why was the Trans Am sinking into the ground in the sellers’ backyard, you may be thinking? And why was there a hole purposely cut into it?
Fuel Pump Cutout Example A: The Holiest Trans Am; Praise Be! Amen.
“You’re in luck, I just put a new fuel pump in her, from the top, maaayne!” (said with the most (lying), heavy Southern VA accent you can imagine) was the first thing the seller said as we arrived and started walking to the car in the backyard, which looked similar to the one shown above (the photo is not of my car, but from an OfferUp ad; it’s representative, though).
As you can see from the photos in the section above, obviously I bought the car (I mean, I’ve been talking about it here in various articles since I started at the site), but lets go back to the point-of-sale.
You see, the fuel pump going bad in a 4th Gen GM F-Body (Camaro & Firebird) can almost scrap the car. Here in almost ‘24, these cars are either high-dollar warp-speed missiles, expensive survivors with low miles that have been cared-for, or <$3500 beat-to-death clapped out Joe Dirt machines. The latter, of course, is what I gravitate towards and what we were dealing with here.
In a 4th Gen GM F-Body, to get access to the fuel pump you have to:
-Drop the exhaust
-Drop the driveshaft
-Drop the rear axle (!)
-Disconnect the brake lines (which need to be bled when reattached)
-Disconnect the e-brake lines
-Remove a decent amount of the rear suspension
-Drop the fuel tank
-Remove and replace the fuel pump
-Reverse all the above
…and all of the above requires a lift, or a shit-ton of patience, time, skill and a lenient HOA in order to do the job on one’s back. Paying someone else (most likely a shop) to do the job costs about half the value of the car. Check out the video above by Devon Lewis to see what a wicked pain in the ass it is.
The seller figured that he could use the fact that he had risked his life by cutting a fuel pump access panel ⅛” from the fuel tank and lines as a sales strength.
Honestly, it worked. There was no way in hell that I (or any other wrench I know) would want to drop that rear axle, ever. Especially after the car sat on grass for an extended amount of time and had moisture wicking upwards, rusting every fastener. So this fantastic fuel pump access panel got me pretty pumped since I was looking at this car as a long-termer.
Yeah, there was probably some added road noise from a hole in the floor of the hatchback body, but it was worth it in my eyes. Plus that’s what mastic tape is for.
Better this guy take the risk than me; I promised my late grandfather long ago that if I was to do any job, I would always do it the right way, the first time. And that means I would’ve had to drop the axle to honor my good word.
The seller quickly showed me the cuts he made for the fuel pump opening, but he did it quickly and I didn’t get a chance to verify that the pump looked new. He then quickly segued to other aspects of the car. This was before he put on a huge dog and pony show of exasperation when the car that he told me ran great would not start.
“If it ran great just yesterday, as you say, then why is it sinking into the ground in your backyard?” I asked. He then said he ran the engine, but didn’t move it because of some cat that lived underneath it or something. The guy was a bit of a country, wanna-be David Tracy Cat Rescuer.
He saw me coming from three hours away with a trailer, so the odds of me leaving without the car after burning all that gas, money and time (and nearly burning my relationship via cabin heat!) were slim. He knew that he had me — the sale was in the bag. The cat story, the “new” fuel pump story (it turned out to be the OEM fuel pump (from ‘95)), and the fuel pump access panel showcase were all just parts a smokeshow to distract from the engine and starter both being being blown.
Hey, you win some and you lose some though, right? Out of the 131 cars I’ve owned over the years, this one was one of my biggest financial losses ever (over $6K spent on engine replacements and other assorted repairs). I chalk it up to a learning experience and believe that it made me a better, smarter Autopian in the end.
Two replacement engines and two years later, the OEM pump finally went out this Fall. Boy was I thankful for that jerk cutting that fuel pump access panel! What would’ve been a massive affair was just a 30 min plug-and-play replacement.
You live and you learn. Besides, it’s not like GM would do this with fuel pumps on other cars as well, right? Think again..
Fuel Pump Cut Out Example B: The World’s Most Famous ’94 Park Avenue
I’ve said in previous pieces that I have a “James Taylor approach” to car colors, and it’s true: “…deep greens and blues are the colors I choose…”. I have two 90s GM cars, both are green (which rules), and both have holes cut in their floorboards. You may have read about this particular car previously, as it’s probably the most famous $400 car on this site: The ‘94 Buick Parkamino Avenuero.
This beauty will soon be converted into a ute, inspired by the wrenching heroics of The Legendary Laurence Rogers and envisioned by the pure, righteous artistry of The Bishop (even though The Bishop only moves diagonally, he is still one of the strongest that there is on the board). This ute-ification (dissimilar from Califorinication; not a Chili-Peppers fan) is going to happen as soon as we can figure out how to get it started.
You see, the moon roof drain lines have walked off the job (cheap plastic disintegration) and have diverted their watery payload directly into the fuse boxes on either side of the dash. Hopefully it’s not fatal and this 60K mile supercharged beauty started its next life on the roads of The Cape Fear here in Wilmington.
This car was parked under a Live Oak tree when David Tracy was a Junior in high school and stayed there until I rescued it last summer. The gas had been bad since the 2nd Dick Cheney Administration (about 2007) and it seems like someone took the easier (and far more dangerous) approach of cutting the floor for pump access/tank clean-out sometime between ‘07 and ‘22.
I don’t blame them, either. With the minimal value this car has (especially with soaked electronics), spending a lot of time, effort and energy into doing this tank removal the right way is a fools’ errand. Note: I’m spending a ton of time, effort and energy on this car.
Well friends, the 90s GM “H-Body & C-Body” (nearly identical; LeSabre, Olds 88/LSS, Bonneville) was also cursed with a fuel pump that was hard to get to and a fuel tank that was annoying to drop. So much so, that there aren’t any YouTube hits on the procedure that I could find with a cursory search! Yes, these cars predate the internet, but I was surprised not to find any repair videos on a popular 1990s GM passenger car. Here’s one showing the fuel tank/pump replacement on a Buick Regal, which looks very similar in its pain-in-the-assery to the setup on the Parkamino Avenuero.
Here’s a forum thread that references other GM cars of this ilk and engineering — similar to what the Parkamino Avenuero brings to the table. There’s little middle ground and nobody in the center of the Venn Diagram with these conversations about cutting access holes; folks are usually on their respective sides, and staying close to the poles.
I’ll reinforce the safety messaging here: This is a very dangerous task! Just look at how the previous wrencher nearly had The Faucheuse drive him or her away in this Buick, permanently. That is a sliced fuel line below.
Anyhow, the Parkamino had fuel that had turned to varnish/turpentine years ago and the pump assembly had rusted while sitting in that watery hydrocarbon stew for decades. Having the floor cut was actually a godsend, as I was able to remove the rusted old pump and clean the tank with ease. The new pump slotted right in, and fresh gas applied.
Crazy Note: The old, rusted fuel pump still worked!
After patching a leaking fuel line by the right rocker, popping in a new fuel filter and a leaking injector o-ring, I had fuel pressure on the rail! First time in 15 years, son.
Sadly, the pump didn’t get voltage when the key was turned to the “On” position and I had to jump the pump with 12V from the battery, but this is just a minor detail that will be worked out. The starter also isn’t getting voltage, so it’s not just a fuel pump issue.
But hey, it’s all good in this hood! Taking a massive project like this supercharged (future) superhero ute step-by-step is key. This is a project for fun; I enjoy wrenching as a way to disconnect from the stresses of this fast-paced world. Taking each task slowly and in a focused manner keeps one from getting overwhelmed with the larger list of tasks associated with the overall project.
The General does not deserve a salute for making these tanks and pumps so difficult to access in these highlighted examples. Look, I’m the last guy to celebrate Mercedes engineering choices after dealing with their dumbassery and cheapassery firsthand, but they seem to do fuel pump access right. Just look at the access here on The Bishops’ old W126! My Mercedes Crossfire has a pump that is just as well-positioned; well done meine kollegen.
We’re targeting a Spring ’24 reincarnation for The Parkamino Avenuero; stay tuned to The Autopian for updates on next steps.
Back to Floor-Cutting: “What’s The Deal?!” -solid Sienfeldism
It’s not just these two fantastic green 90s GM examples, there are tons of other vehicles where cutting makes sense; here’s the approach that many a 90s GM pickup owner has taken for their fuel pump replacement. It’s not just those that march in service under the General, here’s a thread on a Jeep forum with those dudes, dudettes and non-dude/dudettes going back and forth on the pros and cons of the cut.
As I said above, there has been two distinct camps going at each other, regarding the chopping up of a car for fuel pump (or other component access) for much longer than I’ve been alive, which is discussed all over the internet in conversations such as this. “Just drop the damn tank. It’s not that hard.” is usually the theme on one side and “Go for it. It is so much easier than dropping the tank.” is the take on the opposing side.
The various forums, Reddit content, and general internet commenters always suggest using metal-cutting snips or any tool that does not create a spark around a big tank of gas (for obvious reasons). This was not what the idiot that sold me the Trans Am used, as you can see perfectly straight angle grinder/cutting wheel tracks in the metal. Smart guy.
In fact, there are those who subscribe so intently to the Floor Cut Lifestyle, that they create/purchase products like this one shown above to support their dangerous lifestyle choices. Living on the edge of a potential fireball, having the local Fire Dept on speed dial and making sure the neighbors best not be privy to what they’re up to is their jam.
So Where Do We Stand On This?
We here at The Autopian do not in any way condone anything that may be in any way harmful to you, your neighborhood, your emotional well being, your financial well being, your spiritual well being or your feelings. Alway, focus your Center and balance your Chi. Be a hollow reed and let stress blow through you. Take from that what you will.
Is cutting the floor out of your car to save your bank account a good call? Perhaps if:
-the car is worthless (under $2.5K?)
-access to the pump and tank are a royal bitch
-you’re using a non-spark-creating toolset
-the car is not wicked desirable in stock/OEM condition (pour one out for all the 90s DSMs, as there are nearly none left, my dawg!)
…then I say yes. The Parkamino Avenuero is the perfect poster car for this decision pathway.
If the tank and pump can come out with moderate effort then do the job the right way! Expand your wrenching skills, spend some time in the garage with a good friend, grab some tasty beers and pizza and remember why you fell in love with working on your own cars in the first place.
If you’re thinking of being unintelligent enough to use a spark-creating tool/device, just don’t. Charles Darwin has already attained enough accreditation.
That’s it for Stevie G. for this one; hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed living and writing it. Until next time, my Autopian friends!
photos by Stephen Walter Gossin unless otherwise noted
- Is The $1,200 Beat-To-Death Pontiac Grand Am For Sale In Every Town Worth It? I Found Out.
- How I Got Six Years Of Service Out Of A $220 Car
- What I Learned Trying To Flip Two Dirt-Cheap GM “J-Body” Coupes That Nobody Wants
- How I Saved A Once-$90,000 Mercedes SL I Bought For $1,900
- Why The Dirt-Cheap Broken Jaguar X-Type For Sale In Every Town Might Actually Be Worth Buying And Fixing
- I Took On A Bad GM Design In A Hail-Mary Attempt To Fix My Friends Broken Suburban But It Was Too Little Too Late
- I Asked The Internet Which of My Cars I Should Sell. Here’s What The People Said
- I Have More Cars Than Parking Spaces. Help Me Decide What Stays And What Goes
- What It Was Like Owning And Fixing My First Jeep After Owning Over 100 Non-Jeeps
- I Bought A 29-Year Old Buick With 68,000 Miles On It To Prove The Haters Wrong
- What I Learned Restoring A $600 Dodge Ram With A Burned Up Transmission And Ruined Interior
- How I Bought A Broken Version Of My Dream Car For $300, Then Nursed It Back To Glory And Let It Free
- How I Saved My Buddys’ SUV After It Died At The Most Embarrassing Possible Time
- ShitBox Showdown: The British Are Back In The Cape Fear
- Gossin’s Gold: Graveyard Garbage & Grievance Vol. 1
- Gossin’s Gold: Graveyard Garbage & Grievance Vol. 2
- Gossin’s Gold: Graveyard Garbage & Grievance Vol. 3
Hey fellow V-teamer.
I briefly contemplated cutting a hatch in the bed of my pickup but a good look showed me it was a bad idea. Instead we used a transmission jack to drop the tank, which was easy, unlike the never to be sufficiently damned Ford fuel line connectors.
Regarding GM G body how to videos it may be a generation thing since videos for 2000-2005 cars are common, including one for the obscure driver’s side blend door in my 2003 LeSabre.
On my S10, I just undid the 8 bed bolts to the frame, and attached it to the arms on my 2-post lift, and raised the bed up a couple feet.
If you have a two post lift …
In my research I discovered a special jack made to left the left front corner of a pickup bed for rapid fuel pump swaps.
At my age (75) I just can’t do the stuff anymore on a creeper but the lift has kept me in the game.
My 1987 560SL has the same fuel pump module as that W126. If I can just figure out how to drain the gas tank (the problem is getting a clamp on the line from the tank to the first [of two] fuel pump), then I have a kit to rebuild the whole thing. But it’ll have to wait till spring, as the car is in winter storage now.
My 05 Mazda 3 had the fuel tank and pump under the back seat, with a handy access hole already there…but in the wrong place. Used some tin snips to enlarge said hole and the fuel pump could be accessed without dropping the tank. On my Sequoia, had to drop the tank, but at least they located it to the side where no axle or driveshaft had to be removed.
It is a known fact, throughout Southern Africa, that green coloured cars are haunted.
But the Antichrist in The Gods Must Be Crazy was blue, then again it was also a Land Rover so the demons were probably factory installed.
BMW has made some questionable engineering decisions over the years (plastic impeller blades, anyone?), but when I had an E34, and had to, at various times, replace both the blower fan and the fuel pump, and discovered that ‘there’s a panel for that’, I was sold on the overall engineering. I now own an E82, and am slightly less… well… sold…
On another note: Car purchasing road trips can be a blast. I once went to the middle of Long Island to pick up a $700, 16 year old Saab, to drive back to Chicago. End of the long story, I drove the last mile and a half, at 5:AM, to my GF’s house in the South ‘birbs, dragging the exhaust and throwing sparks. Good times.
I request that it be read into the record that the Saab 900 does, indeed, have an access panel to make replacing the fuel pump a quick and easy task.
I once accomplished the task in about 30 minutes with simple hand tools, including the removal of all the miscellaneous junk I’d accumulated under the hatch.
Those GM engineers are monsters.
Praise Sweden!
I did it on my awd 850
Not convinced this is actually super dangerous, gas tanks almost without exception do not explode. Basically the worst case here is burning down your car(which was worthless anyways, that’s why you’re cutting a hole in it). Not great, but you’re unlikely to be injured.
Fuel tanks and lines are relatively hard to light anyways. I would be willing to do this with a grinder, but with an extinguisher nearby.
You’d generate more heat but probably have less of a chance of puncturing the tank that way.
When I had a Chrysler 300, they had the courtesy of including factory access holes for the fuel tank, right under the rear seats. They made many other baffling design decisions, however. It had two fuel level sensors and the wires ran through the fuel tank, with a connector only on the far end of the wire. So to replace the remote sensor you had to fish the wire through the tank. Also, the battery was in the trunk, which was electronically actuated. If you closed the trunk with the battery dead, you would have to climb in from the back seats. But oddly, there was no lock to prevent getting into the trunk from the back seats which to me is a major compromise on security.
My early model Corvair has an nice round access hole (with a custom plug) for the left rear upper engine mount that is only accessible if you drop the subframe.
My BMW 2002 has sheet metal doors in each front kick panel area for rear access to the door brake mounts that always come unwelded and make popping noises.
I have two (of a total of two) green cars! I finally made it into the 1%.
I’m sitting at 2 green out of 10. Others are grey, red(3), blue(3), and yellow.
I’ve learned (the hard way) if you show up with a rental trailer, there will be no price negotiation. Seller figures if you’re willing to spend $80 on a trailer for the car, you’ll probably just pay the asking price.
So now I normally commit to making 2 trips, one to look at the car, one to pick up the car. If it’s far enough away that I don’t want to do that, I pre-negotiate the price.
I’ve negotiated with a U-Haul trailer.
I hate cut holes for fuel pump access.
I love FACTORY holes for fuel pump access.
Seriously why didn’t they do this from the start.
Because the extra $1.35 would have cut into shareholder (ie: CEO and Senior Executives) profits.
Always enjoy your articles. I think you’ve given me a new appreciation for the gen-4 Trans Am. The UTE project is going to be an adventure, especially with such a round, sculpted car. Most of the successful DIYs I’ve seen have been SUVs and wagons with very obvious ‘cut lines’.
The only in-tank pump I’ve ever replaced was in my 240 wagon, and Volvo included a handy access panel. It’s shocking that GM didn’t do the same, especially with such a ludicrous procedure to drop the fuel tank.
That said, I’m not out of the woods yet- every high mileage 240 will need its fan blower motor replaced at some point, and that job is a multi-day struggle of disassembling the entire dashboard and console back to the firewall. I’ve actually read of some folks creating their own access hatch in the side of the blower housing and glueing it back together with plastic modelling cement…
re: Volvo 240 blower replacement – the so-called “chainsaw method” beats the hell out of the full disassembly approach. Sikaflex & some moderately flexible plastic (I cut out the bottoms of 2 oil catch pans from the dollar store) takes care of those holes effectively.
Good plan. I’ve probably got another year to mull it over.
If you can make your hands much smaller than they are now, that will be helpful.
(Or maybe there’s a dextrous, aspiring young gearhead you can draft into assisting with a few of the hardest to reach bits.)
My house now has a “hot water line to the kitchen access” panel (cut from the stucco on the side of the house) after last summer’s leak catastrophe. No flammable/explosive dangers nearby so the decision was merely a cosmetic concern.
I did the same in our last house, except the access panel was in a closet, the other side of the wall was the shower handle & valves 🙂
I 100% approve. Bonus points if it’s welded back together.
SWG articles always brighten my day. Always well written and a fun read.
Great yarn as always, Stevie G! The 4th-gen sits below the Rockford and Knight Rider eras on my Firebird power ranking (but ahead of the first-gen) … but I’m glad it has its fans, and more Pontiacs > fewer Pontiacs, right?
And Rei-Rei sounds like a saint.
Out of curiosity: what’s on your go-to road trip playlist? Is there a specific “gonna go get a car” playlist?
My 944 came with an access hole in the floor of the hatch from the factory for the fuel gauge sender unit, I think. (Fuel pump is thankfully to the side of the tank and easier to access.)
Anyway, I think that means that gott dang hell yea that friebird is basically a hifalutin parsh ???????????? fuel pomp change lees annyoing
Wait, is this how I sound when I speak?
It’s how I’d write if I put this on Craigslist/place.
I did this on a 1990 Range Rover. Later years had an access panel, but not ours. I drilled holes for the four corners of the opening and used a hand saw to cut between them. The best part is that the floor was ribbed from front to back, which made those cuts somewhat more challenging. Cutting the panel out and replacing the fuel pump was a total of about two hours. I spent more time making a hinged access panel. Getting this done at a dealer or mechanic would have been fairly expensive at the time.
I replaced my first fuel pump just last week, in my shitbox ’99 Corolla. I was very thankful to Toyota for including a hatch under the back seat to get to it!
This. First pump I replaced was in my first car, a ’98 Corolla. I was quite disappointed when I got to the second pump I ever replaced, the one in my dad’s ’01 Astro Van. If it were a pickup, we would have pulled the bed the way we did on my friend’s ’08 Sierra.
First I couldn’t understand why a talented mechanically inclined car nerd didn’t just replace the radiator in the Durango prior to your adventure.
But now I understand.
More important stuff to do then fool around with cooling system deficiencies for your tow rig when you got exciting projects to get started.
I like working on cars with rust that have value still.
Doing it on stuff that’s junk is really original. I love it.
I am thankful the only fuel tank I’ve ever dealt with is the one in my 1972 Super Beetle. Some easily accessible 13mm bolts, pull off the fuel evaporative system hoses and filler hose, unplug fuel sender, disconnect fuel line under car and it’s out. Took me about 30 minutes as a wrenching newbie when I was 14 years old, but I haven’t had to pull it since.
Yep, makes me thankful that every import I’ve done fuel pump/sending unit work on (3, I think?… mix of Japanese and German) had an access panel (from the factory) easy to get to under the rear seat.
Been waiting for a SWG update, not disappointed!
Great read, SWG!
I am keen to see the Firebird spread its wings, and hyped to see the start of the ute-ification when it happens!
As I commented earlier, I’ve been lucky that the only times I’ve had to work on fuel tanks is either from underneath (Valiants), or with a factory access panel (Subarus).
I’ve had enough hair-raising fuel leaks to have absolutely no desire to try and cut a hole right above a tank!!