Gas Cap Trick

When we ran our outfitting business a few years back, we found our clients loved to ride in the Things with the top down, so we ended up using them a lot. We would gas up in a many small towns and back country gas stops. Some of the guides we hired weren’t really into driving the Things, and somehow we kept having the mysterious problem of lost gas caps. One by one, the spare caps we carried in our Things were soon depleted.

One time we were leaving a gas station in Grandview, Idaho where we frequently fueled up. This time Mare saw a gas cap tumble into the borrow pit within a mile of pulling out on the highway. We stopped to find the cap and wound up finding three others that had been lost at the same stop over the last few months.

I knew we had to do something. The best idea I came up with was to take some rare-earth magnets salvaged from scrap computer hard drives and
attach them to the gas caps with JB Weld.

 

Figure 1: Magnets affixed to gas caps with JB Weld.
This type of magnet is so strong; I’d advise you to make sure your fingers aren’t between them and any metal.  I myself have sported one or two nasty pinched blood blisters for weeks from nonchalantly misplacing one of my digits between one of these magnets and my steel-topped workbench.
Figure 2: Old style gas cap with magnet on the inside.
I like the old style cap and put the magnet on the inside for a real nice classic look.  I affixed it to the top of the stock cap.
Figure 3: A convenient place to put the gas cap while fueling.
Figure 4: Magnet affixed to the outside of the stock cap.
It looks okay, but the best part is I haven’t lost a cap since.