Patent ID: 6854477
Filing Date: 2005-02-15
Classification: F16K,Y10T

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for inhibiting fuels from flowing out of fuel tanks, the apparatus comprising: a housing fixed to a top of a fuel tank, and having an evaporator opening communicating with a canister at a top thereof, a fuel opening enabling a liquid fuel held in the fuel tank to enter the housing at a bottom thereof, and a minor-diameter through hole disposed in the vicinity of a top inner surface of the fuel tank and communicating the inside of the housing with the outside; a floating valve accommodated in the housing, floating on a liquid fuel, and moving up and down in accordance with up-and-down movements of a level of the liquid fuel; a seat on which the floating valve is placed; a cylinder extending upward from the seat, accommodating the floating valve, and having a peripheral wall and a lateral hole formed in the peripheral wall and communicating the inside of the cylinder with the outside; a bottom hole formed in the seat, and communicating the inside of the cylinder with the outside; and a flow passage extending from the bottom hole to the lateral hole, flow passage in which a part of the peripheral wall of the cylinder intervenes, whereby detecting that the fuel tank is filled up with the liquid fuel by increasing a gas pressure within the fuel tank when the level of the liquid fuel within the fuel tank fully closes the fuel opening, and closing the evaporator opening by moving the floating valve upward when the level of the liquid fuel rises abnormally.