Jesus-Ninja
01-11-2009, 10:40 PM
OK, here's the story. I fitted a Sard FPR to the legnum, along with an oil filled gauge for under the bonnet and an electrical gauge for inside the cabin. I built up the FPR, with the appropriate threaded tails, and a t-piece for the two gauges, also with a threaded tail. It's worth mentioning at this point that I had opted to mount the gauges on their T in a seperate location to the FPR itself, for a number of reasons, including making fitting easier as well as access / visibility of the two.
So, being wary of the dangers of fuel, I blanked off all the various bits, joined the two setups together with a short piece of hose, pumped it up with a foot pump until I had 70 odd PSI on the oil filled gauge, clamped it off and left it for an hour, after which, it had lost all of a half a PSI, which I attributed the the air in the system cooling, and possibly the fact that two of the hoses were just clamped off with mole grips.
Anyhow - my point is I'd done everything I could to ensure safety.
So, I locate the two, and I need a hose to go between them. Fuel house of course :) But the brass tails I have are a very narrow gauge, but that's OK, as there's no flow. The T with the gauges is effectively a dead end. We only car about pressure. And in fact pressure in a narrow tube is easier to contain - think some of the vacuum / boost pipes for gauges etc that are pretty much just pushed together, yet great big mikalor clamps on the main boost pipes. But I digress!
Off to my local motor factors for some FUEL hose. The guy gives me some stuff that I'm not convinced with, but he assures me it's fine for fuel. What's more it's a good fit. He asked what pressure I would be running (as I'd said I definitely wanted fuel clips, no jubilee) and I told him anything between 50 and 100 psi. He said the stuff was fine for that and sold me 2 metres.
SO, it's all fitted and installed, and nothing leaks (nice) I do a few power runs, stopping to have a sniff, and there's nothing, not a whiff. I do notice that the hose is softer than it was, with the warmth of the engine bay, but that's probably nothing... right?
Comfortable with it all, I hand it over to the missus to drive to Sheffield from Kent on Thursday. She gets there OK, which is a great relief! My bro is heading up there in the Saturday to see our family, and jokes about taking it out for a blast around the peak, and I say "sure, go for it!". I arrive on the train on Friday evening. My bro, as it happens, declined the offer to take it for a drive.
So I do a few pootling trips, and on Saturday night drive to meet a friend for a drink. We have a pint, and as we're both driving, head back to his for a cuppa. He has to pick his misses up fom work, so I suggest I take him in the Leggy, and I nail down his private race track to where his girlfriend is working, and then back again. Much "oohing and aahing" involved :D
We go in for another tea, and at 1am I decide I ought to go home to bed.
The car won't start. It turns over, but doesn't fire. There's a stench of fuel. I pop the bonnet, but can't see where it's coming from. I assume one of the joint has been weeping fuel and there's some air in the system. I turn on the ignition (to start the pump), and it's like someone has turned on a tap! Everything is soaking.
I find the problem. The "fuel" hose has burst. It hasn't split. It hasn't rubbed, it hasn't burnt. It's BURST. I've attached 3 pics. One shows you the original internal diameter of the hose, next to a piece that shows how much the pipe has ballooned along it's length. The whole pipe has stretched to this internal diameter. Oh, except the bit where it burst. The other two pics show you where it burst - how much the pipe ballooned before giving way and how thin the wall had become.
Firstly this is fecking annoying and had me running round on Sunday morning trying to find something to as a minimum block off the FPR (the pressure gauges are not essential to getting home), and preferably some hose of the right diameter or some new wider tails so that that choice of hose is better. In the end I had to take the tail off the FPR, fill that with solder and pressure test it.
But what was worse, and the point of this post and rant, was the night's sleep I had having got back at 2am. What if my wife and 4 month old son had been in the car, driving when it had let go? Or me an my mate? Or my bro had taken it out for that blast. A few litres a minute of petrol p!ssing all over hot turbos?! :(
On top of this, had there been some kind of catastrophe, doubtless the pipe in question would have been incinerated, no one, including me, would have known, and the assumption would have been "feckless amateur kills family".
Really pissed off about it all. The most annoying thing was that at the time of purchase, I wasn't convinced, in my heart of hearts. Fuel hose is either braided, or has a reinforcing thread/ply in it's wall, and says "fuel hose" on it, with a pressure rating in bar or PSI. This had none of that, yet the guy said it was fine, and was given all the information (intended use, environment etc). In my keenness to get the job done, I took his word rather than my own gut feeling, and for that I suppose I am responsible.
Part of me wants to read him the riot act, but I think just a polite visit to show him the hose in the pics and to explain that what he sold me is not fit for purpose is appropriate, to ensure he doesn't sell anymore as fuel hose.
Grrr!
So, being wary of the dangers of fuel, I blanked off all the various bits, joined the two setups together with a short piece of hose, pumped it up with a foot pump until I had 70 odd PSI on the oil filled gauge, clamped it off and left it for an hour, after which, it had lost all of a half a PSI, which I attributed the the air in the system cooling, and possibly the fact that two of the hoses were just clamped off with mole grips.
Anyhow - my point is I'd done everything I could to ensure safety.
So, I locate the two, and I need a hose to go between them. Fuel house of course :) But the brass tails I have are a very narrow gauge, but that's OK, as there's no flow. The T with the gauges is effectively a dead end. We only car about pressure. And in fact pressure in a narrow tube is easier to contain - think some of the vacuum / boost pipes for gauges etc that are pretty much just pushed together, yet great big mikalor clamps on the main boost pipes. But I digress!
Off to my local motor factors for some FUEL hose. The guy gives me some stuff that I'm not convinced with, but he assures me it's fine for fuel. What's more it's a good fit. He asked what pressure I would be running (as I'd said I definitely wanted fuel clips, no jubilee) and I told him anything between 50 and 100 psi. He said the stuff was fine for that and sold me 2 metres.
SO, it's all fitted and installed, and nothing leaks (nice) I do a few power runs, stopping to have a sniff, and there's nothing, not a whiff. I do notice that the hose is softer than it was, with the warmth of the engine bay, but that's probably nothing... right?
Comfortable with it all, I hand it over to the missus to drive to Sheffield from Kent on Thursday. She gets there OK, which is a great relief! My bro is heading up there in the Saturday to see our family, and jokes about taking it out for a blast around the peak, and I say "sure, go for it!". I arrive on the train on Friday evening. My bro, as it happens, declined the offer to take it for a drive.
So I do a few pootling trips, and on Saturday night drive to meet a friend for a drink. We have a pint, and as we're both driving, head back to his for a cuppa. He has to pick his misses up fom work, so I suggest I take him in the Leggy, and I nail down his private race track to where his girlfriend is working, and then back again. Much "oohing and aahing" involved :D
We go in for another tea, and at 1am I decide I ought to go home to bed.
The car won't start. It turns over, but doesn't fire. There's a stench of fuel. I pop the bonnet, but can't see where it's coming from. I assume one of the joint has been weeping fuel and there's some air in the system. I turn on the ignition (to start the pump), and it's like someone has turned on a tap! Everything is soaking.
I find the problem. The "fuel" hose has burst. It hasn't split. It hasn't rubbed, it hasn't burnt. It's BURST. I've attached 3 pics. One shows you the original internal diameter of the hose, next to a piece that shows how much the pipe has ballooned along it's length. The whole pipe has stretched to this internal diameter. Oh, except the bit where it burst. The other two pics show you where it burst - how much the pipe ballooned before giving way and how thin the wall had become.
Firstly this is fecking annoying and had me running round on Sunday morning trying to find something to as a minimum block off the FPR (the pressure gauges are not essential to getting home), and preferably some hose of the right diameter or some new wider tails so that that choice of hose is better. In the end I had to take the tail off the FPR, fill that with solder and pressure test it.
But what was worse, and the point of this post and rant, was the night's sleep I had having got back at 2am. What if my wife and 4 month old son had been in the car, driving when it had let go? Or me an my mate? Or my bro had taken it out for that blast. A few litres a minute of petrol p!ssing all over hot turbos?! :(
On top of this, had there been some kind of catastrophe, doubtless the pipe in question would have been incinerated, no one, including me, would have known, and the assumption would have been "feckless amateur kills family".
Really pissed off about it all. The most annoying thing was that at the time of purchase, I wasn't convinced, in my heart of hearts. Fuel hose is either braided, or has a reinforcing thread/ply in it's wall, and says "fuel hose" on it, with a pressure rating in bar or PSI. This had none of that, yet the guy said it was fine, and was given all the information (intended use, environment etc). In my keenness to get the job done, I took his word rather than my own gut feeling, and for that I suppose I am responsible.
Part of me wants to read him the riot act, but I think just a polite visit to show him the hose in the pics and to explain that what he sold me is not fit for purpose is appropriate, to ensure he doesn't sell anymore as fuel hose.
Grrr!