Filling up with Gas in a Gallardo

Lamborghinis take lots of gas! In California in particular filling the car with gas (petrol in the EU) can be a frustrating experience. The angle of the gas hose nozzle has to be changed in order for the pump not to cut off. Everybody seem to have their own way of doing it. To make matters worse different gas station pumps seem to behave differently.  Figure 1 (a popular Lamborghini computer desktop photograph) shows the way that seem to work best in early Diablo's. The more recent 6.0L Diablo has the gas tank port horizontal and does not seem to be a problem. I do not know about the Murcielago. The Gallardo on the other hand is a real problem. The problem is that the pump nozzle does not sink far enough down into the gas tank to push back the anti-vapor sheath that many pumps have. If this sheath is not pushed up the pump will cut off.  In California Chevron pumps in particular seem to be the most sensitive to this requirement. Figure 1. Filling up with gas in a Diablo

The Solution If you pull the sheath up with your finger as the gas is flowing (and keep it up) the pump will not cut off. The only problem with this is that it can be tiring for a large fill up and your hands will smell of gas when done. Recently while visiting a local hardware store I saw a solution. In the electrical section there was a common type of plastic fitting used to attach electrical wire ducts to junction boxes. Almost every hardware store has these. Just go to the fuse box/panel area. Fortunately the treads on the largest size tubing exactly fits the treads on the Gallardo gas cap. As shown in Figures 2 and 3, you can screw the "adaptor" on to the top of the gas tank. Then as shown in figures 4 and 5 when you insert the gas nozzle as far as it will go the sheath is now compressed sufficiently to allow gas to flow.  As an extra bonus the "adaptor" can sit in the gas lid area when the lid is closed (fig 6) so you don't have to worry about loosing it.     Figure 2. Plastic adaptor   Figure 3. Screw on adaptor   Figure 4. Insert gas nozzle       Figure 5.   Note sheath is compressed   Fig 6. Storage of adaptor

This page was last modified on 03/12/2014