PRESofUNIVERSE

The floppy fuel door problem is pretty common on this generation of F150 and actually is a relatively easy and cheap thing to fix, so here's a how-to!

The reason the doors become floppy is because of a cheaply made piece of metal that serves as sort of a spring to keep the door either fully closed or fully open. As you can see in the picture below, when this piece of metal breaks at a joint, the door becomes useless as it just hangs loosely.




To fix the door, you will need:

• A new fuel filler housing; (~$30-$40 on Amazon)

• 7mm socket driver
• Flathead screwdriver with a small tip
• Duck Tape
  
  

1. To start, first remove your fuel cap and tape off the opening to the the filler neck so dust, screws, or other nasty things don't end up in your gas tank.
2. Then, using the 7mm socket driver, remove the three screws circled in the picture below.
   
   
   
   These screws were pretty rusty and nasty so I went ahead and sprayed them down with a little silicone grease so they'd go back in easily without chipping anything.
3. Next, take the flathead screwdriver and stick it into this little hole on the housing where the fuel door is attached. Push the screwdriver in at the direction of the yellow arrow, and once inside, begin pushing toward the fuel door in the direction of the blue arrow.
   
   
   
   The door will begin to separate from the housing and as it kind of pops up, slide the door towards you in the direction of the blue arrow in the picture below.
   
   
4. Next, locate two little notches in the housing: on my truck which is flareside they were slightly offset clockwise from top, but on a styleside they should be pretty close to the top. Using your flathead screwdriver again, stick the tip into one of the notches and pull away until it pops out of place. (see pic below)
   
   
   
   Repeat this with the other notch so that the housing is detached from the body of the truck. (It'll still be held in there but the next step covers that.)
5. At this point, your housing should look like the picture below labeled 1.
   
   
   
   Now, you will need to rotate the housing counter clockwise until it reaches a position similar to how it is in the picture below labeled 2.
   
   
   
   At this point, you can now twist the housing out of the body of the truck.
   
   Congrats, you're now done with the hardest part!
6. Pull your fuel cap off of the old housing by pulling in the direction of the blue arrow in the picture below. (Take a little bit of force, but don't worry, you won't break it)
   
   
7. Attach the fuel cap to the new housing by just snapping it in to place.
8. Place the new housing in to the body of the truck hinge first the same way you removed it.
9. Rotate the housing clockwise until the big notch on the inside fits into the slot on the body. (see pic below)
   
   
10. Push the housing inward once the notch is lined up until you hear a snap, this noise is the two notches pulled open by the screwdriver during removal falling into place.
11. Line the fuel door up to the contact point on the housing and make the little edge fit between the two L shaped pieces of plastic on the housing. Slide this in in the direction of the arrow then slide the fuel door towards the body of the truck so that it locks into place.
    
    
12. Replace the 3 screws into the housing. (Remember to grease the screws a bit to make em go in easier)

That's it! Your fuel door should stay open and closed when it's supposed to and close with a satisfying thud.

bobkyle2

Approved into exterior how to

pitcher3853

Thanks for the write up! This just happened to my truck and I didn't want to take it to the dealership and pay them for something I knew couldn't be too hard. Gotta love cheap plastic!

josh80

Did this today. THANKS!!! That floppy door had been driving me CRAZY! lol

Saltlife

You saved another one! Dealing with double sided tape and Velcro for 9 months was dumb of me..... Took only 5 mins to replace.

kawazzr

Just wanted to say THANK YOU for posting this. I picked up my first ever truck - a 2004 FX4 this week and this "was" one of two things wrong with it. Seriously!! (the other is a small tear in the front seat).

Thanks to your instructions, it took me longer to wait in line for the part than it did to replace it.

THANK YOU!!!

Prof

Another big thanks, ten years no problems. Five year old wants to help pump gas and snap! Floppy gas cover.

Read this ordered the part from Amazon (41 bucks ouch), here in two days and bing, done in 10 minutes.

Thanks again!

selfdrivinghuman

Thanks to PRESofUNIVERSE for a helpful post, but PRESofUNIVERSE’s statement of the reason for the floppy door is inaccurate. What breaks is not the metal spring, but the plastic hinge pin, whose end near the metal spring breaks off and falls away with its attached lever, leaving the metal spring with no lever hole to hold and, so, with no way to apply force to rotate the hinge pin and door. Never send plastic to do metal’s multi-decade job. Ford should be ashamed of itself. The lever, with the spring end in the lever hole, is visible in the Good part of the first picture.

flyrr100

Will this fix work with the fuel door without a cap?