fuel line decision
 

Having heard dire reports of fuel lines leaking, I am considering replacing one or more fuel lines while doing a vacuum hose job.

The line between the fuel rails, according to Ray at Malloy, is upwards of $100 by itself, as it has the fittings incorporated and crimped into the hose at either end.

My line looks just fine and had not been leaking. Should I:

1) Spend the money and replace it with OEM.
2) Cut / tear off the crimped ends and remove the hose,
then firmly attach generic fuel line hose with hose clamps.
3) Just leave it alone; it should be fine

Has anybody done option 2? It would certainly save some $$$, but arguably fuel lines are not the place to be cutting corners. thoughts?

Generic fuel hose works just fine! ;) Take a piece with you to Advanced Auto and tell them you want so many feet of the same fuel hose.

You can buy the fuel recall kit for $80 or so that has all new fuel lines, bunch of o-rings, crush washers, you name it. Turbojeff discovered that one, it's a good way to get everything you need and save some cash.

Dale

Malloy sells the fuel line recall kit for like $80. It includes all of those "tricky" hoses. Definitely a good buy, imo!

http://www.rotormafia.com/96koverhaul/13_recall-kit.jpg

If you decide not to go OEM (I would go OEM in this case), make sure you get fuel hose that is rated for fuel injection. I've had places try to sell me fuel vapor hose and tell me that it would be ok with fuel injection. It won't. The high pressure will split it fairly quick.

Sonny

Sonny is right -- if you use stuff from the auto parts store, you MUST use fuel injection hose (which is designed for high pressure), rather than simple fuel line (which is designed for low-pressure carb setups). 5/16" is the right size for FD stuff.

However, the kit from Mazda is a good deal and includes the fuel rail hose that you can't duplicate with auto-parts store purchases.

Also, a lot of people seem to dislike them, but those spring clamps are better in many ways than the worm-gear clamps. Spring clamps rarely damage the hose and never become loose from heat cycling (like the worm-gear clamps do). I've never heard of any fires from a fuel hose popping loose because it was 'only' spring clamped.

-Max

Yeah, I talked to Ray about the kit, but I had just bought a lot of the stuff that is in the kit from him last week, before I considered messing with the fuel lines... thus this bit of research.

My understanding is that the kit includes fuel lines, some vac lines, copper crush washers, acv gasket, more spring clamps, injector insulator "grommets" and o-rings. (what are the crush washers for?) Anything else I missed?

And Max, yes I think this is one place where I will keep the spring clamps. I've stumbled across enough loose worm clamps to distrust them for something like a fuel line. Besides, these are not clamps one has to deal with on a regular basis. I hate the spring clamps and have purged what seems like hundreds from my engine bay! Has anyone tried loctite on a worm clamp? :)

Thanks for the advice!

The crush washers are for the banjo bolt on the secondary fuel rail side of the hose that connects the fuel rails together, just like the 10 thousand that are on the turbo oil/coolant lines.

The spring clamps work just fine for me, although they are possibly the most frustrating things to get loose, because there are two on all the factory fuel hose connections and on my car, the each clamp was facing 180* from the other, making it almost impossible to get both off without some mad raging.

To answer your quesion:

How many miles are on your car?
Has the fuel line recall been done?

On my car, I didn't replace the hose when I had everything apart because mine has had the recall done with the previous owner and the whole car only has 60k miles, so the hose can't be THAT old.

I feel bad Dale, Max is actually the one that told me about that on the big list years ago:).

I'm with Max on the spring clamps.
I prefer spring clamps to worm gear clamps. I don't know why people think the worm gear clamps are better, especially for the small diameter stuff.

Good question. I'm not sure what was covered in the fuel line recall. Ray at Malloy was of the impression that, if my fuel line between the fuel rails had the integral fittings at either end w/ crimped hose connectors, it was post -'93. Is that what was replaced in the fuel line recall?
.
To answer your other question, I have about 78000 on the motor/car. Still goin' strong! (knocking on wood...)

They don't think they're better, they just hate dealing with the spring clamps! I've learned they are a lot easier to work with if you have a nice, broad-nosed pair of Channel-Loks. I fought them for a long time trying to use needle-nose on them, or pliers that weren't wide enough to cover all three prongs at once, or that wouldn't spread wide enough for the large diameter clamps...

But I still hate them. We just have an understanding - if they piss me off they're gone.

seems like a good buy. ill have to consider it :wink:

you really need to do this right and get the oem line for the rails
from the firewall you can just go buy some ss braided line it will cost about 8 dollars a foot and last forever. make sure to put 2 hose clamps on each end though