Propane fill valve leaking

[micabarry]

I looked through the threads and couldn't find anything about a leaky fill valve, but mine did. I smelled propane under the van and found that the plastic fill valve cover was covered in about 2" of frost. It was obviously leaking, which I confirmed when I unscrewed the cap. It was very cold out, in the teens, and I had just returned from a 6,000 mile trip from warmer weather, and the tank was about 10% full. I bled off propane for about 10 mins using the bleeder valve thinking I would drain the tank, then worried about blowing up the neighborhood and turned it off. The leak stopped. I'm planning to replace the fill valve, but now I wonder if the extreme change in temp with very little propane in the tank activated some normal system to decrease extreme pressure in the tank. Anyone have thoughts on this?

[micabarry]

I may not have looked at previous threads closely enough. Under "propane expansion" I noticed a similar problem with tanks being too full. So it looks like maybe my system is working as it should. Agree?

[skater]

Very possible. In theory they only fill it to 80% of capacity to allow for expansion, but for various reasons they may accidentally put more in. It's not hard to imagine getting it filled when it's extremely cold out, then being in hot weather and getting some bleed-off because it expanded that much.

Personally I'd just keep an eye on it and see if it keeps happening.

[micabarry]

Thanks! I wasn't relishing trying to get the fill valve off, although like most things with these vans, the anticipation is usually worse than the actual project. It's age related I know.