Created 17 October 2008

A common but less talked about issue with the MK2, strangely not a mk1 issue, is the sticking petrol flap. You know the story, pull into the petrol station, turn off the engine, pull the filler release. Except the flap does not release and you're left there looking a gimp trying to free the cap from inside the car. Try as you might nothing is going to get the petrol flap to open and yet you're plain out of petrol so you need to get the darned thing opened. My solution was to wedge a windscreen scraper under the in car lever and then prise the flap open with the key. The problem wasn't the cable being pulled far enough, the problem was the crapo spring on the flap not pushing the darned thing open. I'd pull the spring out a bit and it would fine for a month or so then I'd need to repeat the excercise again. After a year or so of getting stuck once in a while I decided enough was enough.

I found a left over bit of narrow ID boost piping and cable tied the blighter to the inside of the spring and hey presto the flap pops open every time. Should have done it ages ago. Some pics below

finished article