Laying Lines

 

On the last update I had made a bracket and mounted the fuel pump, so this time it was time to get the fuel lines in. I have opted for a hardline this time round as opposed to full length rubber flexi hose. I want the fuel line to be a as durable as possible and less responsive to E5 or E10 variants so a copper hardline will cope with anything so let’s get it in! 

Hottest day of the year today so glad I was able to utilise the sun to help heat up my copper spool to aid with bending and manipulating it into position. This is a 8mm spool which is a tad overkill for a carb engine, however it’s better to oversize than undersize. The fuel will be regulated just before the carbs but if I was to have only used 6mm fuel line there could be a risk of fuel starvation which would seriously effect what little performance the 1500 engine will produce. 

I wanted to run the fuel line in one continuous run… however it is physically not possible with the bends needed. It “could/would” have been possible prior to the body sill getting fixed and bonded onto the chassis but alas that is too late in the build stage for me now…. Bugger.  So three runs of hard line front to back with two compression straight couplers needed in certain places. I started off with cutting the hole in the boot floor and fitting a rubber grommet to protect the copper line against the sheet metal boot floor. The position I have already calculated when bodging up the first attempt with the fuel line and this is also where one of the connector will be.

The second leg of the fuel line is simply following the outer chassis sill and a bent up and along the underside of the boot floor into the compression coupler. I have had to remove the offside rear wheel, mudguard and radius arm to give me access to get all this, and I still need to get back in at some point and fix the fuel line with some clips (which I don’t have yet) I will get some protective sleeving to cover this section of the line also, whilst it is in to risk of direct hits from road debris it will just help protect from the elements as such. I will also need to seal off the lower section of the rear bulkhead which you can just see as the fuel line runs through it, but this is relatively easy later on with some PU sealant and some offcuts offcuts of sheet metal.

The main run of fuel line is now easy to run along the sill length, unfortunately with another straight coupler along the length. Then it runs through another grommeted hole in the front bulkhead and bent up towards the fuel regulator. I have used some braided fuel line from the copper to the regulator and intend to do the same from the regulator to the carbs with a fuel pressure gauge in line also. Unfortunately the unions I ordered haven’t arrived yet so I will have to postpone that for another time. But with the main run from the tank to the engine bay now mostly in place and sealed up I was able to drop some fuel in the tank and pressure up the line. I started off just blocking the output from the regulator as I wanted to run the pump and fuel lines under pressure for a while to confirm all joins are sealed and no risk of leaking and I was pleased that everything held nicely with just a small nip of the fitting next to the passenger seat to get it to seal. Once I had done that I was happy just to run the fuel through the lines back into my gerry can which will help flush any debris through and into the filter, this will get changed after a few miles on the road and after a couple of full fuel tanks have passed through the line.