With the engine and gas tank in it was time to connect them. The original fuel line was long gone – like the brake lines, I didn’t trust the 50 year old corroded steel fuel line. The original fuel line had been cut out to make it easier to work on painting the bottom of the car.
The biggest difference between brake lines and fuel lines is that the fuel line is larger and stiffer. Both of these factors combine to make it more difficult to route the fuel line through the tight spaces between the frame and the body.
To make things even more difficult, I wanted to have a single piece of line going from the fuel tank in the rear to the fuel pump on the engine. It would have been much easier to cut the fuel line into 2-3 pieces, install the pieces separately, and then join them under the car. This is also more prone to leaking.
Of course this isn’t bad enough! I also wanted the fuel line to be protected by a stainless steel rock guard – basically a heavy spring around the fuel line.
Have I mentioned that this is underneath the car? Like other “fun” jobs this required crawling under the car and threading things around and through the rear suspension in the back and the engine and accessories in the front. There are days where I really want a lift instead of jackstands. There are other days when I simply want an adequate supply of high explosives… I am really looking forward to the last job underneath this car!
The result was an entire day spent fighting to get the line routed tightly along the frame from back to front, secured with line clamps, and connected to the fuel tank and fuel pump.
The fuel line connects to the tank and pump through short pieces of rubber fuel line. Even though hose clamps are used, it is a good idea to have a lip or bulge or bubble on the hard line to keep the rubber line from slipping off.
In a previous article covering brake lines I described problems getting good quality double flares from a standard flaring kit. It turns out that the first stage of making a double flare produces a bubble that is perfect for securing rubber lines.
My flaring kit supports several sizes of line, including the 5/16″ used for fuel lines. It made quick work of adding bubbles on both ends of the line, ready for installation of the rubber hose.
Although it took much longer than it should have, the end result is a new gas line connecting the new gas tank to the new fuel pump using new rubber gas line connectors that should be leak free for many years.
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