redoing my fuel ststem, help with plans....

streetgrande69

Founding Member
Nov 2, 2002
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Splendora, Tx
I am thinking of redoing my fuel line in stainless and braided line. Anyone have an opinion. I want to come out of the tank, go to braided, then stainless hard 3/8 the at the firewall, go to braided again, the from the pump to carb, polished stainless hard line

well I don't really know much about a/n fittings, I know I don't like the blue/red.(looks sooooooo 80's :rlaugh: ) anyway, I will go with polished or black oxide. There is a earls distributor down the road, so I guess I’ll go down there and see what he has.

Can anyone suggest a inline filter. The good, bed and ugly....

Here is a pic, I need to figure out how to do the nipple off the sender.

Anyway any suggestions greatly appreciated.......


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LMan said:
why not hardline (steel or alum) from the tank to the firewall? MUCHO cheaper and no one will see it. Unless you are one of 'those' that puts mirrors under your car at shows :rolleyes:


no, i'm not :rolleyes: , but i just assumed there was a reason for the small piece of rubber at the tank, but now that you bring it up, that is a great idea! so scratch the braided at the tank........
 
I have braided line from sender to fuel pump, fuel pump to filter (both pump and filter are located near tank), then I have Russel aluminum fuel line (using AN fittings) from filter to bulkhead connector in drivers inner fender. The bulkhead connector goes right into the regulator inside the engine bay. From the regulator to carb I again have braided.

You can have an AN fitting brazed to the sender by a radiator shop. If you use a -8 male make sure you grind the hex part that will interfere with the sender retention ring.
 
I have a braided set up from the tank (fuel cell) to the carb with a Fram filter just after leaving the tank. Mine is run inside the car but that is not necessary for street cars.

I would encourage everyone to be done with rubber hoses in the fuel system. Just visited a buddy two weeks ago who lost his '67 because of fire from ruptured rubber fuel line.

HistoricMustang
www.historicmustang.com
 
I also use a flex line from sender to filter. The chassis and body flex in addition to installation ease is why I went this way. I don't know about others but I could feel chassis flex b4 I went to sub-frame connectors. That flex on 3/8 stainless lines can, over-time, negitively effect the integrity of your fuel lines.

I personally do not believe in aluminum fuel lines on a street car. Waaaaaaaaaay too much potential for damage, leaks.....fire.

My set-up, see attached pic, omits the old fender-well area to bring in fuel. I come into the engine compartment THROUGH the drivers side trans tunnel brace. (Just outboard of the parking brake cable mount). There I change to braided line. My regulators are mounted on custom square bore carb plates I had made to mount NOS solenoids, fuel regulators, etc. on. (I try to regulate the fuel as close to the carb as possible.

I did this in the restoration for asthetic reasons primarily in addition to ease of maintenance. I'm the type that really hates to "see" what makes "this" work; speaker cables, switches, etc. So when we re-designed the electrical and hydraulics we intentionally omitted traditional firewall connections as much as possible. In fact I had about 30 holes welded shut in the engine campartment, filled and painted just like the rest of the car. (I really hate the mustang electrical layout...boys must have just come out of the paint booth, looked at a fairlane and started shoving.

-Q
 
blandq said:
I personally do not believe in aluminum fuel lines on a street car. Waaaaaaaaaay too much potential for damage, leaks.....fire.

-Q

Do you have some info on problems, or are you just basing your opinion on the word "aluminum"? Before we used the Russell aluminum line we had concerns, so we did the following tests. We took a section of the 3/8" Russell aluminum line and 3/8" steel line. Put the fittings on each and hooked them in line with a pump on one end and a regulator on the other. The pump put out 20 psi and the regulator was set to 7 psi, so through the 2 pieces was 20 psi. We then set up a couple simple pendelum type devices (metal arm hooked to a bearing on a shaft) and used 2 different heads: one round, one wedge (like a chisel). We performed 2 tests on each type of line; one with the round head, one with wedge. We kept adding weight to each device until a simple swing (90* sweep) would cause: A. a kink that would shut off flow more than 50% with the round head, B. A split with the wedge head. In both types of test the aluminum won. The wall thickness of the aluminum line was almost double that of the steel line. After doing that we were all satisfied the aluminum line would work. I have almost 20k miles on mine with no probs. The other 2 guys have more than that. One has even taken 2 cross country trips with no problems.
 
I based my opinion on the superior anti-corrosion, tensile strength, and elastic modulus of stainless to aluminum. As an amatuer at this it became pretty clear to me after bending both 3/8 alu and 3/8 SS fuel line which had the least risk, most margin, and longest life.
 
blandq said:
I based my opinion on the superior anti-corrosion, tensile strength, and elastic modulus of stainless to aluminum. As an amatuer at this it became pretty clear to me after bending both 3/8 alu and 3/8 SS fuel line which had the least risk, most margin, and longest life.

Fair enough.

I just figured the steel line lasted 35 years I think the aluminum will outlast the life of my car (my car isn't a show or specialty car so it will probably see the wrecker before most other cars).