Fuel line replacement, What to look out for Options

[DavidSweden]

I am currently repairing the rust / replacing metal on the driver side longs and floor pan. While I have the car up in the air and the engine out I would like to replace the plastic fuel lines that go thru the tunnel, the car smells of gas and i dont want to risk a fire

Questions;
I was thinking about using 6mm stainless tubing. Is the choice of tubing good?
It seems a pretty straightforward jobb, is there anything I need to consider/watch out for before pulling out the existing plastic tubes.

Thanks

[Spoke]

RacerChris has a complete solution for SS fuel lines. No need to build your own.

[DavidSweden]

RacerChris has a complete solution for SS fuel lines. No need to build your own.

Yes Chris has good quality stuff, but hes on the other side of the pond, so it will be DIY Swedish style (whatever that is)

[napasteve]

I just installed Tangerine Racing SS fuel lines. Chris supplied everything I needed. The trickiest part was re-installing the fuel tank without kinking the lines under the tank. As was recommended to me on this board, I made loops for both the supply and return lines under the tank and that worked. FYI Chris lists the line sizes on his website as 8mm for the return line and 9.5mm for the supply line.

[DavidSweden]

I just installed Tangerine Racing SS fuel lines. Chris supplied everything I needed. The trickiest part was re-installing the fuel tank without kinking the lines under the tank. As was recommended to me on this board, I made loops for both the supply and return lines under the tank and that worked. FYI Chris lists the line sizes on his website as 8mm for the return line and 9.5mm for the supply line.

Thanks for the info, you had no problems getting them through the tunnel? Do you have any photos of the connections to the tank I dont really understand what you mean "loops" do you connect the ss tubing directly to the outlets on the underside of the fuel tank?

Thanks again

[Mark Henry]

I just measured Chris' lines today the supply was around 9.5mm OD and return a bit under 8mm. Both the short lines are the 8mm.
Likely they are standard size tube that is close to metric.

Are the plastic (nylon) lines shot? They are pretty tough and I doubt they would ever be an issue if they are run at low pressure, stock pump location. Most fires are more bad clamps, connectors and old hose issues. You could just replace the high pressure short runs in the engine bay.
If you did do the front FI pump then yes, replace them.

[napasteve]

It was a PITA to feed the lines from the engine compartment thru the tunnel. I had a helper and I don't think I could have done it without him. Note that we did the installation with the engine in place. Here is a picture of the installed lines:



Here is a picture of the lines poking out up front under the fuel tank:



Initially I used a short length of fuel hose to connect the bottom of the fuel tank to the SS lines. When I re-installed the fuel tank, the supply line was pinched. (the easiest way to test whether or not the line is clear is to just blow into the line back in the engine compartment once the tank is in place. Note that the return line is very clear and easy to blow thru unlike the supply line which has a screen up in the tank that offers a little resistance to air flow) So I pulled the tank and made loops with about 22" of rubber fuel line for each of the 2 lines such that the loops did not pinch when I put the tank back in.

You just need to look at the orientation of the SS lines and the lines coming out of the bottom of the tank and figure out the best way to connect them. Some on this board have suggested that you re-attach the hoses after the tank is in place using the access hole under the tank. My fat hands are way too big to do that so I used the loop method.

[Amphicar770]

It was easy with engine out. One hung up, I simply removed and tried again.
Hardest part was getting tank back in without kinking fuel hoses. Inspection camera helped.

The original hard plastic line was in better shape than I expected.

[porschetub]

I used,truck metal brake line tube through the front bulkhead grommet,good quality hose and the correct fuel line clamps.
Pressure side was redone in rated (blue) plastic line from a VW Golf,correct inner ferrules fitted @ all the flexible hose joints.
This was easy to run and I now it is going to last,however my original plastic lines were in good shape,the rubber jointing hoses less so.
As I'am running carbs I ran the pump power supply down the old return to the engine space.

[Steve]

There's a good article on Pelican about using brake lines for the center tunnel lines.
http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/9...e_gas_lines.htm
Easy to find at any flaps.