Carl Froehlich
Well Known Member
I think you are wrong - or at best do not understand my description:
At no point did I say the liquid needs to compress in order to let air in. Air comes in a working system because the fuel level goes down - the air pocket in the tank grows - the pressure of that air becomes lower than ambient, and so ambient air is sucked in (when testing on the tarmac) to equalize the pressure and keep the gas flowing. When flyign you have ram effect but these are all ground tests.
The incompressibility of the gas is what PREVENTS air from coming into the tank to replace fuel volume when the system is busted.
Difficult thing to discuss with words - I put some crude pictures in my response to Carl below.
You are treating the tank fuel/air interface as a barrier. It is not. The only things that count are the pressure (or vacuum) in the tank compared to outside pressure. The pressure (or vacuum) in the tank will be the same regardless of measuring below the fuel level or above (ignoring the trivial amount of height difference).
Van's route the vent to the high end of the tank to reduce fuel burping out the vent with full tanks.
From everything you said, I conclude you are drawing a vacuum in your fuel tank. The smoking gun is that you said you suck in air when you removed the fuel cap.
I suspect just good luck prevented a collapsed tank.
Carl