Saturday, April 6, 2013

A Dubious Gas Cap


A couple years ago, as previously recounted, I purchased an "original" BMW locking gas cap for the car. In fact, this item is still for sale here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-BMW-E3-E9-Chrome-Tankdeckel-gas-cap-2-key-2000CS-CA-2-8-3-0-CS-CSi-CSL-/150927852942?pt=DE_Autoteile&hash=item232400458e. (The price is now considerably higher.) It seemed fine but as time went by the cap became more difficult to remove from the filler hole. Not a good sign, since I could imagine getting to a gas station and being unable to remove the device and having to resort to drastic measures to get fuel into the tank. I also went as far as to polish the old, stock cap, with thoughts of using it once more. It looked good when re-installed on the car. However, since I had gone to the trouble and expense of buying the locking cap I did prefer to keep using that version. Finally a squirt of graphite in the lock did the trick and freed the mechanism. So once again the locking cap is on the car and the tank is protected from the predations of vandalizing strangers.