Gas Door / Fuel Door fix
08-06-2008, 04:57 AM
#1
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Gas Door / Fuel Door fix
I noticed some people posting about their gas door not being flush. ... So here goes.
It is adjustable. Pop it open and you'll see it is held on by two phillips screws. The bracket those screws go through has elongated holes, so it can be centered. Adjusting its depth takes a tiny bit of ingenuity. The shop manual doesn't cover ingenuity which is why your Nissan dealer can't fix it.
Your adjustments may be different. ... In my case, I put two washers underneath the lower bracket hole (between the bracket and the gas door assembly). The washers made it level, then I loosened and tightened those screws and adjusted it until I got it perfect.
So by putting washers under the top screw or bottom screw (or both) you can rock the whole panel in and out.
Use thin washers, that way you can stack them and have more adjustment. I used two plastic nylon washers because that is what was at the top of my washer pile. I probably should have painted them black.
The stock screws are barely long enough. If you put any washers / spacers in there the screws will have no chance of reaching the threads. You'll need a metric screw M5 x 0.8 at 3/4" maximum length.
Anyways, I think it took about 5 minutes and I didn't even get dirty!
It is adjustable. Pop it open and you'll see it is held on by two phillips screws. The bracket those screws go through has elongated holes, so it can be centered. Adjusting its depth takes a tiny bit of ingenuity. The shop manual doesn't cover ingenuity which is why your Nissan dealer can't fix it.
Your adjustments may be different. ... In my case, I put two washers underneath the lower bracket hole (between the bracket and the gas door assembly). The washers made it level, then I loosened and tightened those screws and adjusted it until I got it perfect.
So by putting washers under the top screw or bottom screw (or both) you can rock the whole panel in and out.
Use thin washers, that way you can stack them and have more adjustment. I used two plastic nylon washers because that is what was at the top of my washer pile. I probably should have painted them black.
The stock screws are barely long enough. If you put any washers / spacers in there the screws will have no chance of reaching the threads. You'll need a metric screw M5 x 0.8 at 3/4" maximum length.
Anyways, I think it took about 5 minutes and I didn't even get dirty!
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RobPhoboS (01-09-2017)
08-06-2008, 06:08 AM
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Originally Posted by RN7676
Adjusting its depth takes a tiny bit of ingenuity. The shop manual doesn't cover ingenuity which is why your Nissan dealer can't fix it.
Nice one!This fix will come in handy, thanks for contributing.
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08-06-2008, 08:47 AM
#11
Originally Posted by PerfZ
Great solution. And once it is aligned properly, the hatch will open on the 1st touch of the button, which was a major PITA on at least the '03 models.
Next thing I know I had pushed the button in so hard that the button itself was inside my dash! 
I of course had that, "oh ****!" look, but luckily the button just pops back in. So playing around with the alignment should make it open right away? This has always pissed me off a bit, but looking at my gas cap, it really doesn't seem to have any alignment issues. It seems dead center and seems to be on a level plane with the rest of the vehicle body.
Last edited by Done Deal DR; 08-06-2008 at 11:37 AM.
08-07-2008, 04:52 PM
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Wow! Nissan=FAIL my car has had a saggy fuel door since day 1. This literally only took me 37 seconds to do and the passenger side of my car looks 10 times better. Great write-up man I have been waiting for someone to find a cure for my ole' saggy fuel door lol.
