Fuel line replacement lessons learned., Replacing Fuel Lines in 914 Options

[jperret]

Fuel line replacement lessons learned.

My son and I replace the fuel lines in our 73 2.0. We used 3/8 inch thin-walled aluminum. We tied a cord to the old lines when we pulled them out and use the cord to steer the new lines into place. We pushed the new lines in from the rear of the car. Using the string and guiding things by hand using the access ports in the center tunnel were all that was needed. The diagram I found on the site of the tunnel cut open was really helpful. Finished with a few restarts in about ½ hours.

Lesson learned: Don’t try to attach a wire (we wanted to run a +12 battery line up front for a future headlight upgrade) to one of the lines as you pull it through. The wire get chapped. We just used another string and pulled another one through its own access holes.

Bending the lines at the rear of the car was a bit tricky. This is the end with the most bends and the most pipe in the way. As the lines exit the rear passenger compartment they must make a right angle bend. There is not enough room to do this correctly.

Lesson learned: Use a fitting here. 90 degree bends in this tight space with a lot of tubing in the way (to minimize the number of joints) is not easy. I crimped the tubing, so I had to put in the elbows. I did not have room to flare the ends so I used a 3/8 inch ferrule bead elbow.

The rest of the bends went well; we were able to make a neat installation with minimum number of connections.

Now comes the fun! We installed a fuel pressure gauge.

This diagram was also very helpful.



Lesson learned: The fuel pressure guage and this diagram are invaluable for trouble shooting tools and worth the money. I plan to just install it permanently.

The pressure was too high. We bypassed the fuel pressure regulator and the pressure was still too high. So it had to be a blockage in the return line. Before this along the way we tried switching the lines out of the gas tank (dumb move).

Lesson learned: On the ‘73 the line that comes out of the bottom of the tank, closest to the front of the car is the RETURN. This has a tube that goes into the bottom of the tank, and it’s outlet is very close to the bottom. The SUPPLY line is the one towards the rear of the car and it goes further into the tank so it does not suck gunk from the bottom.

Well you guessed it! When we switched the lines as part of “try anything” phase of our trouble shooting we sucked gunk in to the nozzle of the gas tank pick up. We tried to blow it out with no luck, so we had to take it apart at the gas tank.We cleaned it out and it all worked great!

Now that we have done one, I could do it again in less than 1/2 day.

[firstknight13]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) chris foley has stainless steel lines available for sale in the club........ i am not afilliated with him but he is the " MAN" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)