Fuel Lines

[berg944]

Helping a mate with a fuel leak. (87 Lux)

Easy to find. The usual place, over the axle.

Anybody used a compression fitting on the steel pipe, then a flexible pipe over the axle?

Does the return pipe go to the top of the sender unit? If it does then it is only attached with a clamp!

Will we need to drop the tank to attach the return line?

Mike[:'(]

 

[Guest]

just done my pals...

both sides fo the fuel filter...i.e the piepweork was goosed..

took em off...they came adrift from the outer most fixings if you use good toolage and i went to local pipe hydraulics place, bought new end fittings and clamped new fuel pipe to these and it was as original in a sense without silly porsche costs.

cost all of a tenner

 

[Riverside]

I had a similar problem a couple of years ago, Zentrum cut out the rotten lines & replaced them with rubber hose. Much cheaper plus no need to drop the rear beam to replace them. Obviously the replacement hose spec needs to be up to the job.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Mine done with rubber as well. About 1 hour labour plus some rubber.

 

[GeoffB]

Anyone got the spec of the tube used and where to get from, assume not the Halfords stock?

 

[edh]

Try Pirtek

 

[Guest]

You have to be very careful replacing with plastic/rubber. After putting my car on a ramp I noticed that mine had been repaired with a plastic pipe. This is apparently very common, mine had been replaced with a kit that cost the previous owner nearly £100 with fitting. This sort of pipe is only standard plumbers fittings that could be bought for your local homebase. It was fitted to the existing metal pipe with two quick push on connectors as its the same size.

Pipe of this type is not rated to carry fuel of any type and just remember its at full pump pressure from the tank. This may be lower pressure than it can withstand but if this pipe does degrade with fuel the last thing you want is fuel spraying out under the car next to your right rear wheel and not far from the exhaust.

Its your choice, and ultimately its a difficult job as they have to drop the rear axle down to replace the formed metal pipe. Me, I payed the money and had it done properly as porsche intended.

Just a thought some specialists won't fit anything other than metal pipe as they have to warrant the job, there would certainly be some explaining to do if anything went wrong after you left, god forbid!

 

[944psi]

ORIGINAL: edh

Try Pirtek

I did see --> here <--.

Still happy, no leaks or problems so far.

Phil

 

[Guest]

Did you have any problems keeping the pipework away from the rear axle? Did you clip them out the way?

 

[944psi]

No problems with the torsion bar - pipes are clipped in place with P-Clips. I think if you are going to go down this line, then you will need to perform regular inspections just to make sure that all is well.

 

[bernard tester]

Hi I have replaced quite a few fuel pipes on 944s we use copper pipe! I think one pipe is 8mm and the other is10mm can check tomorow when I go in the workshop.Berny.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Its your choice, and ultimately its a difficult job as they have to drop the rear axle down to replace the formed metal pipe. Me, I payed the money and had it done properly as porsche intended.

Appreciate your point, Leeky, but to be honest on a 20-year-old car you can't always go by the Porsche intentions....

Imagine a few stone chips needing a visit to the Porsche-approved bodyshop. Or, let's think about where we buy our tyres. OPC? Probably not.

Yes, using proper metal pipes will last another 20 years and cost you a grand. My garage were happy to use flexi pipes, and I trust them, and the £100 repair will probably see the car out.

 

[Guest]

Thats fair enough, yes it is 20 years old but it boils down to personal preference, I would have to make sure all the fittings and hoses were fit for the job and rated to carry fuel at pressure before I fitted them to my car, did you check?

When buying tyres they have all been rated to your vehicles top speed so you know they are fit for purpose. Its printed on the tyre. If the pipes used are fit for purpose they will also have it printed on the pipe.

When paying for bodywork your paying for the skill of the work completed, if he gets it wrong your car might look crap but it won't harm your health. Fuel leaks can be just a little different.

What i'm trying to say is ultimately its your decision but when it comes to fuel and brakes i'm always cautious.

 

[George Elliott]

I replaced my fuel hose section around the Beam (944's dont have an axle, - if it did I would scrap it[]) with £20 quids worth of flexi fuel hose from the local motor factors. The job is 100% safe and looks very tidy as the clips are proper fuel clips, about a fiver. It took me about 4 hrs.

The original reason for the metal lines I suspect is:
They are pre-formed by the supplier so easy for a Production Line assembly process.
They are light weight
They are cheap to produce
They are a huge profit stream at 10yrs - thats where we come in[] sir.......
They are easily and quickly clipped in place by a few knock on clamps.

So.... Officially Outrageous, Porsche Priced, Centre of Claptrap. OO.PP.CC. !!

 

[944psi]

ORIGINAL: Leeky Fuelpipes?[]

Thats fair enough, yes it is 20 years old but it boils down to personal preference, I would have to make sure all the fittings and hoses were fit for the job and rated to carry fuel at pressure before I fitted them to my car, did you check?

When buying tyres they have all been rated to your vehicles top speed so you know they are fit for purpose. Its printed on the tyre. If the pipes used are fit for purpose they will also have it printed on the pipe.
snip

I did check - I took the specs of the fuel system to Pirtek, i.e. pressure to ensure that correctly rated pipe and fittings were used. I also took lots of advice from here and other sources to make sure what I was planning would be fit for purpose. My pipe is rated to 28 bar and uses either swaged or compression fittings;

Re-reading your original post it is not clear if you have sorted out your pipes Leeky, although I would assume from your comments that you went for metal?

Either way there is a choice and it doesn't have to be a complete bodge.

 

[rcsalmons]

I went the Pirtek route. I had a line made directly from the fuel filter with a compression joint at the other end and the return in similar fashion. Dont rely on jubilee clips to hold the rubber pipe to the existing metal pipes over time you could be in trouble.

Cost from Pirtek £100 - easy diy fitment

Rich

 

[sawood12]

On the contrary. Flexi hoses would be a much easier and cheaper option for car manufactures to adopt. It is no coincidence that all car manufactures use hard lines instead of flexi despite the increased cost. For a production environment flexi hoses are much easier, and as for the spares stream - well I wouldn't consider a part with a 20yr life span that costs about £200 to present a good business case - so there must be a pretty compelling safety or regulatory reason why car manufacturers choose to use hard lines on new production.

Ultimately flexi hoses are fine. We use them on our Aero engines - although they are not maintenance free or damage tolerant (so the airlines don't like them) and almost always require replacement when the engines come in for shop visits, whereas all the hard pipes are just inspected, cleaned up and invariably go out for another 5+yrs of flying. I would urge anyone using flexi hoses for their fuel pipes to make sure they check them annually at least. I fully understand why people go down this route. I was considering it myself and only went down the replacement hard pipe route because my axel was coming off anyway and luckily my local breakers had a nearly new set on the shelf, but if not for that I would have probably gone the flexi hose route. For the sake of a regular visual inspection, at MOT time for example (where they should be looked at anyway), it is better to be safe than sorry.

 

[Diver944]

This is one of those regular discussions that we are never going to agree on, but healthy debate is always interesting []

I am pretty sure that all of us enthusiasts with aftermarket pipes have made all the necessary checks, bought the right product and fitted it responsibly to satisfy you're own safety. However I am also sure there are many non enthusiasts that have not taken the same care and will just throw on anything to stop a leak before selling the car.

If I was buying a car and looked underneath to inspect the pipes and saw rubber hose and jubilee clips I would have no way to satisfy myself that the job had been done properly. Personally I would not buy that car, or I would try to knock off a substantial amount to refit proper piping.

Of course that's not to say that all proper piping is fitted correctly also []

 

[pauljmcnulty]

I would urge anyone using flexi hoses for their fuel pipes to make sure they check them annually at least.

I'd kind of trust my garage to do this when they do the MOT, service or any other time it's up on the ramps, but then I've built a relationship with them over many cars and vans that means I trust them fully. If they say they've been using flexi pipes for well over 100 collective years then that's fine by me....[8|]

 

[Guest]

My car was a little more tricky, the back end had been replaced with plumbers plastic fittings and pipe as I mentioned before, unfortunately when looking at the car when buying I simply didn't see as its tucked out the way.

The car was on the ramp following a check over and service, and I was there picking it up, when it started to drip fuel from the front right wheel arch. The pipes under the car were covered in copper slip from previous services. After taking the wheel off and the inner wheel arch liner the pipe had rotted through only where the clamp held it to the inner wing. This meant after finding the bodge on the back and the leak at the front it made sense to change the lot. The new metal pipes from Porsche are split half way along the under side of the body so you can replace a section and not the whole lot.

You could probably get away with fitting fuel pipe to the front to but this would have meant lots of fittings on the pipe.

Since buying mine if I bought another I would now have a much better idea on what to look out for, there's nothing like experiencing it for yourself!