Well Today I changed my rear shocks (which is not my problem) the old ones were so dead I could push them in and they stayed in...but anyway I decided to go for a quick check ride to the gas station to test out what not catching air over every bump. So I'm filling up and at 10 gallons i hear drip dirp drip and a puddle of gas is running out from under my car, which of course freaks out gas station workers....

It seems as though the automatic cutoff doesn't work well for the old monstrous leaed gas neck in my car, but any way i pulled it out of the pump area so they could clean up the mess and it slowed down to a slow drip. I then decided to dirve home and hope I didn't burn it up and I left a trail of gas all the wa home. I let it sit in the drive way which has a pretty big slope and it stopped. I took for a spin around the block and I leave a gas trail....So I'm thinking something else happened besides overfilling the tank. The gas was dripping from underneath at the rear seat floor pan area right on the bolts uner there.

So could a fuel line have gone out? or did I overfill the tank and it's just still dripping out underneath? I know fuel line is fairly cheap to buy, it's just a pain in the butt to change it out....

I would take a day to observe and see that it was not do to overfilling the tank. I had done the same thing recently and instantly said to myself "fuel leak". That was not the case a day of letting the car sit and no leaks present.
Take the E36 for a spin. By the way we both have the same cars, I also have a E36 & E21.

James

Thanks for the vote of confidence that it's just overfilled...


Today is an E-36 day since I'm headed to an autocross and my e-21 is no way near being able to pass a tech inspection....

On my old E36 vert I had a leaky hose connection ontop of the fuel pump connected to the tank. I assume the fuel pump on the E21 is also in the same spot and it might just be in need of a new hose clamp of piece of hose

On my old E36 vert I had a leaky hose connection ontop of the fuel pump connected to the tank. I assume the fuel pump on the E21 is also in the same spot and it might just be in need of a new hose clamp of piece of hose

Yeah, my old 320 had a fuel leak at the pump. It just poored out of the tank if it was full and the car wasn't level. Take the rear seat bottom out and unscrew the access panel, then check to see if anything is leaking.

If all your hoses are good and the tanks have no holes in them the only place you can leak fuel is out the filler opening... You HAVE a leak!

This is really pretty common on these cars, it takes a few hours and about $15 in hose to fix. You drop the tanks and replace the breather hoses on top of the tanks-inspect the hose that connects the two tanks at the bottom-replace if necessary.

I think there is a tech article on bmw320i.com on fixing this.

ken