Gas Cap Disassembly?

[Jeepsbeme]

Has anyone ever successfully disassembled a GT gas cap? I was hoping to remove the rotating lock cover from mine so that I can get it rechromed. The rest of the cap is in great shape and the lock cylinder works fine.

I removed the large snap ring, spring and related parts. But now I can't see how to proceed from here. There doesn't appear to be any visible fastener to allow access to the lock cylinder and the bottom side of the cap. Any thoughts, suggestions or experiences??

[kwilford]

A brief search reveals:
Inside the OGT Gas Cap - Opel Forums
and
http://www.opelgt.com/forums/fuel-ta...tml#post155342
HTH

[Jeepsbeme]

Thank you Keith.

I did try a word search for "gas cap" but got overwhelmed with the number of results that didn't help me. I guess I should have been more specific in my search attempt.

As always - there's definitely a wealth of quality information on this site!! Thanks again for your help, Keith.

[First opel 1981]

I was wondering if anyone knows where I can get a new tumbler for a GT gas cap? Mine was drilled out long before I got it and I would like to make it lockable again. Otherwise the gas cap is in pretty good shape.

Thanks

[g.rosen]

Look at Yahoo group: classicopels · Classic Opels of North America,
Files/ Tecnical information/How to dismantle, rekey, and improve the GT Gas Cap.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the gas cap

Gunnar

[newman27]

...and if you end up needing a key for the gas cap, you should contact today's birthday boy - opelspyder (Keith) a.k.a the "Opel Key Master". He can cut any key based on the key code.

Matt

[First opel 1981]

But what I need is to know where I can get a new tumbler.



Will tumblers out of a door handle work? (not like I would expect them to)

[markandson]

Came across this old article that I thought I would re-post, I think the author is Wayne Torman.

Here's what I've figured out, and if anyone has any better suggestions
PLEASE share them!

1. Go shopping. You will need a plastic (or fiber) ring with a 3/4"
internal diameter and 1" external diameter, about 1/8" thick. This
*sounds* like it would be an easy part to get, but believe me, I had to
search high and low for them, and I am still not completely satisfied
with what I found, although it does seem to work ok. I ended up with
fiber rings that are just a little bit too thin, which allows a very
slight bit of play... but as I implied, it works well enough! My main
concern is that fiber may not work if I need to do this again -
especially Step 4, below, as you'll see. Also, I know it seems weird
that I used American measurements, but for some reason, these ARE the
right diameters and they didn't seem to fit well against any metric
measurement as well as they did against 3/4" and 1".... what can I tell
ya?

2. Place the gas cap upside down on your workbench. Remove the
retaining clip at the top of the center shaft. This can be done most
easily with "snap ring pliers" which can be had for as little as $6, or
you can use two pairs of needle-nose pliers... insert the tip of one
pair into the space in the snap ring, spread the pliers open to expand
the snap ring, and then use the other pair of pliers to sort of "peel"
the ring away from the groove that it fits into. (Just because getting
it off was easy, don't think you can get away without the snap ring
pliers... it's MUCH harder to put the ring back on! :-) )

3. Once the ring is off, the outer sleeve on the center shaft, the
spring, the spring "cup", and the fuel neck gasket will all come right
off.... in fact, the outer sleeve and spring will probably come off at a
pretty good speed as soon as you remove the retaining ring!

4. Now the hard part, which requires "the trick", where I'd guess just
about everyone who has ever tried this has gotten "stuck". (I know it
stumped me for about a year.) In order to get the "inner sleeve" out,
the way I do it is to use a propane torch, and heat up all the way
around the base of the inner sleeve, right where it bends 90 degrees to
the flat circle of metal that is under where the gasket was. Use a
large pair of pliers to (gently) hold this "inner sleeve" just under
where the snap ring was. After a minute or so of heating with the
propane torch, smoke will start pouring out from under the flat metal
circle (don't worry, it doesn't burn, melt or discolor the metal in the
time it takes for the plastic ring inside to melt... and it seems to
melt quite "politely", without liquefying and gumming everything up).
By lifting up on the inner sleeve so that the gas cap is about a
quarter-inch off your workbench, as soon as the plastic ring has melted
enough, the inner sleeve will pull away nicely from the outer chromed
shell of the cap, and the outer shell will drop away onto the workbench.
Note that there is a small wavy metal ring down inside the inner
sleeve, that fits between the inner sleeve and the outer shell. DO NOT
LOSE THIS RING! Now, clean up the plastic crap (well... there will be
some.... it can't be helped!) from where it melted, and then go on to
the next step.

5. Now that you have exposed the inner shaft, you are pretty much home
free in terms of "trickery", except that you WILL need some patience
later on when you are replacing lock wafers. There is a tiny set screw
on the side of the inner shaft, near the tip. Once you loosen the
screw, the lock mechanism will slide freely out of the outer shell (as
long as you swing the cover open! ;-) ). At that point, you can either
swap in the mechanism from another cap, OR you can replace the
lock wafers in the mechanism with ones that are proper to work with your
key. Here is the deal on lock wafers... all keys are cut using a very
specific instruction set, the "key code". Each notch on the key is cut
to a certain depth as described by the numbers in that code. Opel used
5 different depths, so each digit in the key code is between 1 and 5.
Each side of the key has its own code, hence you'll get a key code like
33512 24321 or whatever. (NOTE: You can still easily accomplish this
change without having the actual key code, I'm just explaining this so
you'll have an easier time of understanding what's going on!)
Unfortunately, it seems that wafers for Opels have become scarce
(although I haven't really asked any of the dealers about this
specifically, because I scavenged several from beat-up door handles and
crappy gas caps). Fortunately, whether or not you have other locks that
you can scavenge from, you'll still be ok, but just a little bit *less*
safe... you'll see what I mean in a minute....

6. Here's the deal on re-keying to your key... once you have the lock
cylinder out of the cap, notice that several of the wafers stick out
past the edge of the cylinder when there is no key in there. Those are
what prevent the lock from turning without a key, because they hang up
in the grooves on the inner sleeve. Now, slide your ignition key into
it. You'll see that some that stuck out before no longer do, but others
now stick out. The idea of this whole exercise is to make it so that
several stick out when no key is in, but when YOUR key is in, they ALL
stay within the cylinder. (By the way, for these steps you'll need a
large tweezer to pull out and put in wafers.) Once you've checked out
the general operation of the cylinder, soak it with WD40 or something
and get it cleaned up. Next, pull out one of the wafers... one that
obviously DOESN'T fit correctly! Notice that the wafer has a thin edge
on top (above the rectangular hole), and a thicker edge below the hole.
(The top is also where you'll notice little sort of serrated edges or
ridges on the corner of the wafer.) The thicker edge is what must
correspond to the depth of the notch in your key that you are currently
working on. In other words, the five wafers that all come out the same
side of the cylinder must correspond to one side of the key , and the
wafers that come out in the other direction must correspond to the other
side of the key. Now that you understand what's going on with the
cylinder and the wafers, it's time to carefully and patiently remove and
replace wafers to match YOUR key. Begin by securing the cylinder
horizontally, with a row of wafer slots pointing up. Notice that only
HALF (five) of the wafers can be removed from each side, so you will
only be working on those five for now. Remember, only work on one side
of the cylinder at a time, and preferably only one wafer at a time.
This is where it's *really* handy to have lots of wafers... for example,
you can observe exactly how wafer "A" fits with the key in place, and
then try a couple of other different wafers from your stash, until you
find one that sticks out without the key, but is perfectly flush above
and below when the key is in. If you are only working with the set of
wafers from your one gas cap, unfortunately, you must remove ALL of the
ones that don't fit before you reinstall ANY of them. That way, you'll
have a pool of wafers to choose from as you try to re-fit each slot with
the correct wafer. While this will eventually get you to (almost - see
paragraph after next) the same end result, you won't have each wafer to
compare to as you go along, because you will probably have already used
it in a different slot.

Here's how to replace each wafer: With the key in place, if the one you
are working on is, say, 2 millimeters *above* the edge of the cylinder,
then you need to select a wafer with a bottom edge that is 2 millimeters
*taller* than the one that was in there. That way, it will push the
wafer DOWN. If the top of the wafer is 3 millimeters *below* the edge
of the cylinder (and therefore sticking out the other side), then you
need to replace it with a wafer whose bottom part is 3 millimeters
*shorter*, so the key doesn't push it down as much! (Did you get all
that? Whew!) Obviously, you'll have to remove and reinsert the key
between each wafer change. I'd strongly recommend that once you do have
a slot filled with the correct wafer, you use a "Sharpie" pen to mark
that that one has been done... believe me, after a while you will be
cross-eyed from looking at these slots and trying to determine which one
you are currently working on, so it will certainly only help. Remember,
concentrate only on the wafers on one side of the cylinder at a time, or
you'll go crazy!

So here's the part about why it sucks (but will still work) to only have
the wafers from your one gas cap... It is NOT required that all 10
wafers be in place for the lock to work. Once you've removed all the
wafers that started off being wrong, you'll see that probably only a few
are still left in the cylinder, because they just happened to be the
right size to begin with. When you take the ones you removed from the
cylinder and put them back in wherever they can now fit, you'll
undoubtedly have a few wafers left over, and a few empty slots, because
your remaining wafers likely won't be the right ones to fill the open
spots. Again, you don't need all 10, so that's ok, but you really DO
need to have some sticking out from both sides (with the key OUT) when
you are done, or else it won't have the same security. Basically, the
fewer wafers you do use, the less safe the lock is, but hell, you do
what you have to in a pinch!

7. Now that you *finally* have as many wafers in the right alignment as
you can manage, you are ready to reassemble everything. Put the key
into the lock cylinder (so that all the wafers are retracted and the
edges of the cylinder are nice and smooth. Next, push and hold in the
little lock catch bar on the side of the inner shaft. Drop the lock
cylinder all the way down into its hole, lining up the round rod on the
end of the cylinder into the opening created in the bottom of the hole
when you hold in the catch. Once the lock cylinder is all the way in,
you can release the catch. Now, hold the cylinder down in the hole by
putting your thumb or a piece of tape over the key entrance, and tighten
the set screw in the side of the inner shaft to hold the cylinder in
place.

8. Take the plastic or fiber ring that you purchased in Step 1, and cut
about a 1/4" piece out of it. While flexing the ring, insert it into
the groove just inside the opening in the inner sleeve, where the
original plastic ring was. Drop the small wavy metal ring that you put
aside in Step 4 all the way down into the inner sleeve. Now, push the
shaft (of the outer shell - where the key cylinder is) down into the
inner sleeve, and jiggle it around until the ring locks it into place.
This might take a couple of tries, but it will eventually 'click'.

9. Put the gas cap upside down on your workbench again, preferably with
a piece of cardboard under it to prevent scratching of the top of the
gas cap! Place the spring cup down over the inner sleeve, with the ears
on the spring cup pointed UP, then place the spring onto it. Finally,
push the outer sleeve down hard over the spring and return the snap ring
to its original location. (This is where the snap ring pliers are
*really* helpful!) Voila!

Another tip: Craft stores sell a kind of fine tip pen that actually has
paint in it. Buy a black one (and a white one - which I'll explain in a
minute), and some "Goo Gone" or other harmless kind of gunk remover.
Use it to "refresh" the black paint in the Opel logo. It works very
nicely! Use the white paint pen to refresh the lettering and pictures
in your instrument panel switches... but BE SURE to use the "Goo Gone"
IMMEDIATELY on the plastic to wipe away excess paint, because it
*really* sticks if you leave it on even for more than a few seconds. It
is FAR better to paint and wipe six times, leaving a little more in the
grooves each time, than it is to try to go really slowly and carefully
and repaint them in one try. If you go that slowly, the paint will have
dried where you started, and you will have a mess. Do a quick fill and
an immediate wipe, and you'll be MUCH happier!

Well, I really hope that this info is useful to a lot of you, since it
was a major pain to type it all up. And I did do this from memory, so I
hope I haven't missed any key details (I don't think so, though...) If
you have easier ways to do ANY of these steps, PLEASE share them with
the rest of us - I *certainly* won't be offended by better ideas!

Now... it's YOUR turn to share! :-)
Wayne

[Gary]

I had a conversation about the GT gas cap with an old locksmith a few years back. I told him about Wayne's torch method and he just smiled. He then turned and pointed to the heating duct above his head and said he used to put them into the duct for an hour or two. The plastic softened enough to be able to disassemble it and he was able to reuse the disc.

[hrcollinsjr]

Originally Posted by newman27 ...and if you end up needing a key for the gas cap, you should contact today's birthday boy - opelspyder (Keith) a.k.a the "Opel Key Master". He can cut any key based on the key code. Matt

Depending on the condition of your cap you may be able to find a working poor condition cap CHEAP and cannibalize it for the cylinder. Keith may even had a good used one w/key from a messed up cap that he would be willing to part with.

Harold

[Mistrbones]

Originally Posted by Jeepsbeme Has anyone ever successfully disassembled a GT gas cap? I was hoping to remove the rotating lock cover from mine so that I can get it rechromed. The rest of the cap is in great shape and the lock cylinder works fine.

Brian,

Did you find out how to get the swivel part of the gas cap off? In spite of all the replies, I did not see anything addressing your original message. Did I miss something?

[zero]

I've had a '72 GT in my barn for 24.5 years, and never locked the gas cap. Here's why: I got the car, sight-unseen, in '79--my dad got it, and ran out of gas on the bridge from MO to IL on the bridge. Highway patrol had to figure out how to put gas in it. The cap never worked--they must have boinked it. I've heard of the melting techniques, the dissasemblies, all. I'm in the middle of trying them all--as the first step toward a complete rebuild of the car. That, and the painting of wheels, which is happening now...
0
Thanks for these fora.

[Jeepsbeme]

Originally Posted by Mistrbones Brian, Did you find out how to get the swivel part of the gas cap off? In spite of all the replies, I did not see anything addressing your original message. Did I miss something?

No, I haven't had a chance to work on the cap yet. It sounds rather time consuming and there are too many other more important things to take care of first. I'm assuming I'll have to follow the entire disassembly procedure in order to remove the swiveling portion of the cover.

[OpelAl]

I have a parts car with a nice cap on it except it is locked with no key, would like the keymaster to make key for me.

[hrcollinsjr]

Originally Posted by OpelAl I have a parts car with a nice cap on it except it is locked with no key, would like the keymaster to make key for me.

Your problem is going to be getting it to him. If you can remove the entire filler neck which I believe is possible on some GT's, some have a flange underneath the rear deck preventing removal through the top unless you cut sheet metal. I was at the Keymaster's place Sunday and he went through a small bucket of keys he's precut and quickly found a key for my cap.

Harold

[OpelAl]

If the keymaster could maybe send a few keys to me I'd pay the shipping to and from and maybe get lucky like you did.

[Mistrbones]

Originally Posted by Jeepsbeme No, I haven't had a chance to work on the cap yet. It sounds rather time consuming and there are too many other more important things to take care of first. I'm assuming I'll have to follow the entire disassembly procedure in order to remove the swiveling portion of the cover.

Disassembly and assembly only takes a couple minutes if you drill out the dimple instead of using heat. I might point out that there are two dimples so you only have a fifty-fifty chance of getting the correct one the first time and it takes a really small screwdriver.

None of the instructions I have seen yet talk about the swivel cover so if anyone has any knowledge about same your input would be appreciated.

[Dennis Texas]

Originally Posted by Gary he used to put them into the duct for an hour or two. The plastic softened enough to be able to disassemble it and he was able to reuse the disc.

I believe you may be correct, I used a propane torch and it melted the inside metal and ruined the cap now I have a nice chrome shell. I should of have boiled it. or some other regulated heat source, but the method seemed so straight forward the thought never occured to me. Looking back on it I would recommend a regulated heat source boiling would probably do it.

[opelspyder]

From heating the edge with the torch, you didn't ruin that cap!!! (Unless you torched through metal) You can get a new ring, that is the whole idea. But I can save you all the trouble of taking it apart. All you have to do is send me your cap. You would probably receive it within that week. The only thing would be if it was damaged or a key was broke in it. As far as sending some keys...not a chance....there are more than 5 codes for these caps. I would have to send you 1000 keys!!!!!! I have gotten lucky with spares in privious years, but now I have every key cut for the GT gas caps, so I no longer take them apart
Keith

[OpelAl]

when it warms up