EOLYS DPF additive tank leaking

[wynnj]

My wife has a 2009 C30 with the Ford/PSA D4164 engine and the EOLYS DPF additive tank is leaking slightly around the 'white' flange. At the moment it is just annoying as the tank appears to be full according to VIDA/DICE. Apart from the annoyance of it leaving yellow stains on my driveway, I obviously want to fix this before the tank runs dry and gives me other problems!

New tanks are £400 plus and even used ones are upwards of £300 on ebay. The fact that they're so expensive 2nd hand implies they must fail quite frequently, but I can't find much on Mr Google.

Q1 is the tank difficult to remove and replace?

Q2, Has anyone managed to dismantle one of these tanks and then rebuild it to cure the leak, and if so, how difficult was it and what adhesive/sealant did you use?

Q3 If I buy new does it need to be coded to the car, and will a used part work if I can find one?

Q4 I haven't tried anything on the stains yet, but does anyone know of anything that will work to remove them.

Thanks in advance.

[IainG]

Hi
On my V50 it was leaking where the pump clicked in. I found some seals and tried a few times. Ended up replacing the tank. Leaking in a different place but couldn't sort it.
Only about 40 mins to replace if the bolts come out OK. I didn't code mine to the car

Iain

[wynnj]

Thanks. I've ordered a new one. Glad it won't need coding.

[wynnj]

Having sought advice on repairing and/or replacing the Eolys DPF additive tank and not having many replies I’ve put this together in case anyone else searches in the future.
Having been advised by one member that he’d failed to repair his when it was leaking from where the pump body is clipped into its housing I decided to take the hit and buy a new tank.

VIDA is particularly unhelpfull here as it just says remove the three Torx screws the electrical connector and the outlet pipe. It says nothing about how to get access to the screw heads. Mine is a C30 1.6D Drive and so is fitted with a plastic undertray between the beam that the tank is screwed onto and the skirt of the rear bumper. If you don’t have this, as I believe it may only have have been fitted to Drive models to make them more aerodynamic, you can skip this next paragraph of woe.

Removing the under tray: This is held at the front by two Torx headed screws, however, as soon as you put any pressure on these to undo them the captive clips inside the beam break free and the screws just turn. Another piece of Cr@p Ford design. These have to be removed to drop the plastic tray. After trying various things I eventually found the best way was to grip the screw head with a mole wrench to stop it turning and drilling the head off. There are two other bolts and some torx screws round the rear bumper skirt to undo and once the tray is off you can see the two rear screws holding the tank. The front one is still hidden by the tank but you can at least reach over and feel for it now.

If you haven’t got access to a hydraulic garage lift or pit it’s actually quite difficult to get under the car to see and work on things at the same time, or it is for me being over 6ft. I already had the rear on ramps and had to raise the near side rear wheel a further 5 or 6” to make it workable.

Removing the tank: Undo the 3 Torx head screws, except for me only one would take a torx key and undo. One took the key but wouldn’t turn and chewed up the splines. The third one at the front wouldn’t do anything which I discovered after I got everything off was because it was completely rusted, to be expected really when you realise that it faces up and it’s going to collect salted water when you go anywhere in the winter! Good design? I used a cold chisel on the edge of the rear screw until it would turn easily enough to grip with pliers and I cut the flange off the front tank mounting from underneath using a pad saw, but be careful unless you’ve already removed the Filler/breather pipe. The flange is just visible from underneath. Once cut the tank came out easily and the rusted screw was removed with a mole wrench.

I filled the new tank before fitting it to the car, however to avoid having these problems again if I ever have to remove the tank in the future I removed the captive clips fitted to the 3 Torx head screws, removed the screws and replaced them with similar length stainless steel hex headed 6mm bolts placing a 6mm penny washer under each bolt head.

For the front fixings of the undertray, I realised that there are other holes in the top of the beam vertically above where the original fixings screws went. I therefore made a extra long bolts ( approx 90mm) from 6mm stainless steel studding, with 2 nuts on one end tightenened and threadlocked against each other, and a 6mm penny washer; I dropped these in from above. There is enough room to get your hand above the beam to put a spanner on the nuts whilst fitting another nut and penny washer from below to hold the undertray. The rest of the fittings go back quite easily but you might want to put a bit of anti rust spray on the spring clips where the tray fixes to the rear bumper.

Once all was replaced i reset the additive counter and refilled the pump using VIDA/DICE. You can hear the pump whilst it's going through this process.

I haven’t looked in detail at the leaking pump assembly yet but on first glance it looks as if there is a rubber ‘O’ ring type seal between the inner and outer parts of the pump body. The fluid must be getting past this so again we have a design, that for the sake of a decent seal costing pennies, we have to replace the whole unit which with new fluid is going to cost the best part of £500 if you do it yourself and a lot lot more at a garage. More wonderful Ford design!

I hope the photos help clarify the text.

[kolleykibber]

It's interesting there isn't more information on this. I imagine theres a fair few tanks out there leaking. I'm beginning to recognise the brown stains on the road, when I'm out and about

I currently have this issue on a 2.0d c70. Did you ever manage to find a way to clean off the stains?