There isn't a man alive today that doesn't look at that and know there is something very wrong about it.
It is designed so that vapor can't escape. Okay, excellent all well and good, I absolutely hate the smell of gasoline! I hate it!
But if they are left in the sun that red cherry plastic gas tank is designed to expand by 3 to 5 pounds of pressure. They say it is designed to do that! There isn't a man alive today who doesn't look at one of those billowing gas tanks and have the gestalt words form in his mind Cherry Bomb!
A man see's that and all kinds of warning bells and whistles go off in his head! About how dangerous gas under pressure is!
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So a search engine told me that they have a pressure relief system in them whereby once it reaches 3 to 5 pounds the gas is vented? I don't see that being true. That is like one of those sissies lies we are all forced to accept!
I haven't taken the cap apart yet but I don't believe that there is a pressure relief spring inside. I don't belief there is anything like that calibrated to open a relief valve or novel mechanism in any way!
Instead what I see on top there is a reshaped wing bolt valve. Perhaps we are to believe that it can't be tightened so tight that pressure won't be able to escape. I don't believe that to be true either. If you are using one for marine purposes you want it to be tight so that water can never get in there and ruin your outboard. So a man naturally cranks it tight. Not tight enough to break what amounts to a plastic wing bolt off in his hand, but tight.
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So you loosen that valve when you are about to get underway. And many of us have made a rain shield out of an old tomato can to go over the whole gas cap area, to prevent either rain or splash water from getting in there.
And then what happens? You are underway in your boat and you look at that gas tank and there is vacuum pressure being created in there from your fuel pump and that gas tank is imploding or billowing inward.
What happened? Was the technology non existent? Likely? But I believe that perhaps when you tightened that simple wing bolt valve you likely packed the sealing washer into the valve area! And hence it doesn't matter how much you loosen it, you packed the valve shut! But you should not have been able to do that.
Now I argued with a person I knew about this. From a company that made them. And that person said they had to undergo substantial testing. I worked for that Milwaukee company as a peon, half the money they paid me went to a temporary employment agency, and that large company ended up going bankrupt long after I left.
So the fuel pump on your marine outboard motor is like a rubber diaphragm? And neither that vacuumed cherry bomb or the billowing cherry bomb can be said to be any good for it!
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So this is not America at its best. It makes me wonder if Germany engineers ever addressed this problem? It makes me wonder if I sent away for a German built marine gas tank in 6 gallons if I would never have to worry about this issue? They had aviation inventions like at least two generations before we did!
Or perhaps that isn't fair. Maybe some very smart American already thought of the answer. Was or was not able to file a patent and profit from it. Perhaps the idea was caught and killed just like Make America Great Again? Perhaps he was completely discredited and made to hear voices. Perhaps the same people told us that cigarette smoking is one of the healthiest things you can do for your life. And that if you don't drink the wine Jesus is not your savior. Get it yet?
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And it is one of those things that I don't even want to start to speculate on how it could be made better. Perhaps a concentric cylinder in the valve that is stainless spring loaded and calibrated to relieve pressure or allow air in? Perhaps some type of vapor recovery gas cap that everyone will say is to big and if you accidently stepped on it would break the neck of the gas tank and then a real present fire hazard would be created? So look at that last sentence and realize how the idiots that designed these think. A fire and explosion hazard or a real present fire and explosion hazard. It is a mind that doesn't get the degree of an issue right!
And if you think you are going to drill a hole in that plastic gas tank and thread in a common valve? Maybe not. Not recommended to do so in a marine setting. Why? Because that rectangular gas tank expands to the shape of a basketball when there is pressure inside. And you can't be assured you haven't created something that will serve as a fault line!
It expands to the shape of a basketball when under pressure. Then when a vacuum is created in it the sides suck in like the face of an 60 year old chain smoking alcoholic on there way out in life.
And you as an American man are suppose to look at that and be happy! You are supposed to look at that Gad damned Cherry bomb and marvel at plastics engineering! You are supposed to be humbled because you could never figure out such advanced plastics chemical engineering! Do you know who doesn't belong here?
© 2026 Thomas Paul Murphy
And here is a fact I read last night. An Etec outboard that experiences a lean fuel mixture can melt the aluminum piston rings in two seconds. (And to the contrary, that right there might have been German engineering!)
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Bottom line, it needs a separate vapor recovery tank!
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And here might be a prime example of an issue whereby profit motivation and having to compete with foreign nations of lesser standards have been detrimental to the well being of our nation. In other words we settled for a lesser standard out of competition from those of lesser beliefs! In other words we settled for a lesser standard in order to convert money from those lesser beliefs into United States dollars? In other words Corporate legal structure created an equivocation between nations that doesn't exist and never should exist. In other words currency should not be traded? Perhaps only goods should be traded? How do you value gold and diamonds mined by slave labor? Because of that last question I don't have the answer right here. And perhaps I don't know the answer. Or it might just be that the answer implies something so horrific that it doesn't come into my mind?
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