Well I finally finished up most of the major work on my 85 SE. Ready to start driving it in a few days. Backed it out of the garage last night and low and behold there a steady gas leak coming from the fuel filter.

I changed the filter a couple of weeks ago. The car ran fine with no leaks. It sat a couple of weeks while I worked under the hood.

Stuck my head under there and it appears that the leak starts at the top of the filter. A pretty healthy one too. Not just a drip drip.

I know that the obvious first thing to check will be that the banjo fittings are tight. Now I didn't torque the holy hell out of them the first time but maybe they just need to be tighter.

The line feeding into the top of the filter looked dry so the filter or fittings seem to be the source of the leak.

And I know I got the little copper washers on there when i put the fittings on to.

Any other ideas of what to look at while I'm in there? Thanks.

 

its been my experience that those need to be really tight

 

they do need to be snug. you also need to make sure that you replaced the crush washers on both banjo bolts with the correct crush washers. there are 4 crush washer total.

 

Four total? There were only two that came in the box. Where do the four go?

 

Found this by doing a search...

"You should have 4 copper washers when you get the fuel filter. If you have 3, reuse one of your old ones from the previous fuel filter. The fuel lines going into both ends of the fuel filter require a copper washer on the top and bottom of their banjo fittings. Or, that thing will leak. Tighten them up as best as you can to ensure they seal properly.

I believe the wrenches I used were 17mm, 16mm, and I believe a 3/4 wrench (for the main hex heads on the filter itself). Just make sure you have a good set of wrenches. "

I'll take a look and see if one of them may have fallen off.

 

well, they wont just fall off.. make sure you installed all of the copper crush washers. and as a note, no sae sized tools are needed on the RX-7. the car is metric only.

 

3/4" is almost exactly 19mm, so you can use a 3/4" if you don't have a 19mm handy for the 19mm bolts on the car.

Like others have said, make sure that all of the crush washers are in place and make sure the banjo bolts are snug.

 

Checked to make sure all washers were there and they were. So I put it back together and tightened the hell out of it. and then gave a couple more.

No more leaks. I guess they call them crush washers for a reason. Thanks again guys.

 

glad you got it fixed. its always great to see the 7 back up and running again!!

 

banjo bolts usually require quite a bit of torque. i hammered mine on pretty hard and havent had a leak sense, glad you got it fixed.

 

Same thing happened to me before. Using new washers around the banjo bolts can make a huge difference. Did for me.