Fuel filler neck electrically charged

[ryan2.3]

I thought i was dealing with one problem, now it looks like i may have a bigger issue. Yesterday i went to get gas, and found that it kept backing up the filler neck and stopping every 50 cents or so. I've had this before and searched around, it was likely the vent was blocked up not allowing air out so the pump was stopping.

That's fine,with all this slush kicking up and cold weather, maybe my charcoal canister got clogged (my inner wheel well cover is missing some screws and it's quite loose) or perhaps some water froze blocking the air vent.

I poured some deicer into the fuel neck and into the air vent (i think... i noticed slits around the filler hole) hoping it could melt things.
http://imageshack.us/a/img7/8758/msl8.jpg

Today no dice, still doing it. I put the car in the garage and put the garage heater on, hoping to warm things up. While warming up, i took the wheel off, took off the plastic wheel well covers and was going to try to check on the hoses (i found a thread where someone said they used an air compressor to blow out the hoses

This is where things get weird. Whenever i touch the filler neck and the skinny metal tube (separate vent tube?) i get shocked.
http://imageshack.us/a/img853/7372/bh0n.jpg
i thought it was me, but after grounding myself then touching it several times to be sure, it's charged and my arm tickles. I've disconnected the battery right now and am looking for similar instances and solutions online

What could possibly be causing some kind of short resulting in my fuel neck becoming electrically charged?

[r4mi5awi]

Yikes!!!

[TheMAN]

no other electric parts are near it except for that sensor in the pic and the fuel pump assembly... the filler tube is connected to the gas tank with a rubber hose, it has no direct metallic connection to the gas tank
the sensor isn't supposed to be zip tied onto the filler tube... there's supposed to be a bracket and the sensor bolts into the bracket... you should disconnect the sensor if not at least cut the zip tie and move it away from the filler tube and inspect the wires to see if it's shorting out.... replace all missing parts with new proper ones as needed

[silverstarmazda]

dumb question....why is the inner parts of your car orange...but the outside white?? :/ that cant ALL be salt could it?

[ryan2.3]

I plastidipped the car white a few months ago.

So i cut the zip tie and reconnected the battery, and no more zappiness. I started the car a few more times with the cap open and it started to fill better (i had a few red cans filled up), it wasn't perfect but it was improved.

I hate when things just work without a logical reason. Yeah its nice to have things in a better state but I would like to definitively know why

[Jackal]

I plastidipped the car white a few months ago.

So i cut the zip tie and reconnected the battery, and no more zappiness. I started the car a few more times with the cap open and it started to fill better (i had a few red cans filled up), it wasn't perfect but it was improved.

I hate when things just work without a logical reason. Yeah its nice to have things in a better state but I would like to definitively know why

Wouldn't you think that there was a logical connection between reconnecting the battery and it working better?

[ryan2.3]

Why would disconnecting then reconnecting the battery stop a short. If something is causing it to be charged and nothing changed, I would expect the issue to come back

[Jackal]

no other electric parts are near it except for that sensor in the pic and the fuel pump assembly... the filler tube is connected to the gas tank with a rubber hose, it has no direct metallic connection to the gas tank
the sensor isn't supposed to be zip tied onto the filler tube... there's supposed to be a bracket and the sensor bolts into the bracket... you should disconnect the sensor if not at least cut the zip tie and move it away from the filler tube and inspect the wires to see if it's shorting out.... replace all missing parts with new proper ones as needed

I thought you followed this advice and moved it away and replaced with missing parts. So all you did was cut the zip tie and reconnected the battery. Maybe the zip tie was tying it close to the filler tube and thus creating a connection somehow. Well anyway glad the zappiness went away.

[ryan2.3]

I cut it, but found that putting it back against the tube didn't bring the shocks back so I rezipped it so it doesn't move around. So essentially, all that happened was a battery pull. But if it ever comes back and this is all it takes I guess I can live with a voodoo magic fix