DIY Daytona Fuel-Delivery Clean-Up

So my winter project this year was to go through the fuel-delivery system of my car. In general, the system seemed to be running fine, but I was hoping to reduce the amount of petrol-smell from the car, as well as just make sure that nothing was "lurking"...

As I have mentioned in other threads, everything under my car (and in the trunk) was overcoated with black paint at some point in the past, and as in other areas I was able to remove the paint, and find examples of what actually might be original finishes. As I cleaned-up various bits, I tried to replicate those finishes as best I could within my "in my garage" context.

Pics of the final results are below, and I'll be adding postings about individual components as my time permits.

Hoping that once all the postings are done, the thread will give some other owners the visibility on the process that they need to feel confident about tackling these jobs themselves.

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So let's start with some preliminaries...

Redoing all the fuel-delivery stuff was going to require a lot of work in the left-rear wheel well, and the trunk, Some access from below also seemed likely, and as it turned-out, a lot of time in the left-rear part of the engine compartment (to get the main back-to-front fuel line out of the car).

While for previous projects I just put the car up on jack-stands, this time I wanted to lift the car a little higher to make my life easier, and the jack-stands seemed a bit precarious, so I went out and bought a QuickJack lift system.

It is always a little hard to say whether a given car will "fit" on a specific model; QuickJack gives detailed instructions for how to measure, but given how much the thing costs to ship/return, I think it is natural to be a little nervous until one actually tries it. Turns out that the "5000TL" model worked just fine on the Daytona, and on my 996 Porsche 911 as well:
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The lift comes with a bunch of hard-rubber lifting blocks to keep the car clear from the lifting platform, and I purchased (over eBay) some rubber "pucks" that were shaped to match the jacking locations on the Daytona:
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With my Euro car, the only problem was interference with the "J" pipes that come off the sides of the main header tubes. Once I pulled these pipes, I was able to lift the car nicely: As I don't have any USA-spec Daytonas "just sitting around", I cannot verify that the USA-spec mufflers clear without any issue, but unless the exhaust-manifold pipes are several inches shorter than the Euros, it ought to be fine (notice where the manifolds connect to the mufflers in the picture below).
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The max lift of this QuickJack puts the sill of the car a bit over 2-feet off the ground, and I found that too high to work in the engine compartment, and even sort of too high to work in the trunk so I settled on the middle locking position, which is what is shown above.

Once the car is up, there are three bolts that hold on the access panel that protects the fuel pumps; on my car, there was a thick layer of undercoat that I had to break to get the panel out. In the picture below, the fuel pumps are already removed, but you can see the two brackets that two of the bolts thread into; the third threaded hole is on a small panel down by the sill: Also near the sill you can see the ends of two metal pipes that run through the sill; the upper one is the route of the main back-to-front fuel line that goes from the fuel pumps to the carbs, and you can see that fuel line coming out of the pipe (end of the line is unattached, because the pumps are not there).
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The other end of that pipe comes up vertically when it reaches the engine compartment. The end is close to the firewall, and pretty deep inside the front fender. Dealing with the main line is a lot easier if you clear out that that area. I removed not only the washer bag, but also the washer pump and the heater-control valve shown below.
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The washer pump (at least on my car) was held-on by a pair of self-taping screws; no issues removing that.

The valve (again on my car) was held on by a combination of a screws and small nuts. If you car is the same, be careful, because losing those nuts in the bowels of the fender might be an adventure.

While the hose to the valve has a cut-off valve at the front of fender, it did not look to me like there was a way to isolate the valve from the other direction. I ended-up just being ready with a pair of rubber plugs to stuff into the hose that is co-axial with the valve shaft, and the valve output hole; do the plugging fast, and you'll only lose a few table spoons of coolant. With the plugged hose (which goes down into the fender area) detached, valve just gets pushed aside with the other hose still attached.

Much to my surprise (car had been sitting for months before I got started) there was still a lot of fuel in the main back-to-front fuel line, so be ready to catch it when you disconnect that hose.

I drained the fuel by attaching a short length of hose to the outlet of the pumps, and just turning the pumps on via the ignition. Flow rate is pretty substantial, so be ready to cut off the ignition if your fuel container starts getting close to full. This method proved pretty effective, and very little fuel came out when I opened the tank-drain plug, and there was not much left in the pumps either. Because of the way it is constructed, the fuel filter that is on the inside of the frame (on the transaxle side) will be left with a lot of fuel in it, so be prepared to catch that when you remove/open it.

 

The lines that I put in are all Gates low-perm (SAE 30R14T2) Barricade; you can get it for about $5 a foot.

The really expensive stuff that you are talking about is generally Teflon lined, but that stuff is too stiff to work with the "barb and clamp" attachment scheme on a Daytona; I did try, and it was very prone to leaking.

The Gates does not have the fabric-wrap of the original stuff, but I was not able to find any fabric-wrapped hose that was of modern construction (perm and Ethanol resistant). For the short lengths, I tried dressing the Gates so that it looked fabric-wrapped, but the final result did not look quite right (and was really fragile). I'll have to experiment more to see if I can come-up with a better working scheme.

I plan to talk about the hoses at length in another follow-up.

Thanks for the warning, however, it is good to make sure that all future readers are aware!

 

That $5/foot Gates stuff is Fuel Injection (FI) rated.

I went to Autozone's website, and the hose that seemed to correspond to your description looks like it is meant for "Aeroquip"-style fittings. Stuff like that usually has some low-elasticity liner in it, but it is hard to say if it is ok without testing it.

The Gates stuff gets good recommendations, is thoroughly "modern-ready", compatible with barbs, and economical, so I felt is was a safe choice.

Of course, one problem with things like hoses is that the manufactures are always "improving" them, and so what is available today is not necessarily exactly the same as what is available tomorrow; this is why I did not put in a model number for the Gates hose; it seemed better to list the characteristics/product-line of the hose; the "Barricade" product-line seems likely to live-on for a long time, and generally is Gates' most high-performance automotive stuff.

The racing guys also like that Teflon-lined stuff, but I tried several (I liked the crazy-low perm and "0" Ethanol vulnerability), and I would not trust any of them to not leak on a barb.

 

Not bad, right?

I made them... I will describe materials and process in a follow-up posting.

 

Hi Timo,

That is an interesting suggestion, I'll have to ponder that.

I certainly see the potential value, but at the same time, every person's rate-of-work is different, as is their tolerance for work quality; both of these things make my personal experiences non-universal. Armed with the "what needs to be done", I think folks can judge for themselves what amount of time they would need to accomplish their goals. And, if someone has no gauge of what their skills and work rate are, then they should give even less weight to my experiences.

I think most people abandon projects because they get bored of them, or because they found new hobbies that they liked more. Nothing wrong with trying something for a while, and giving it up when you find that you really don't like it. This also falls into the "more often than not" category that you mention.

-- Alex

 

Hi Timo,

I'm not saying that people intend to not finish their projects. But I am saying that most "DIY" or "crafts" or "hobby" activities are more recreational than anything else, and so it is natural for people to abandon the activities when they turn-out to be less than satisfying, or are "not as easy as one might have thought". If you think there are a lot of abandoned car projects, don't try to count the number of abandoned attempts to learn how to play an instrument, etc..

I think most people are perfectly capable of doing the sorts of work that I have done on my car; it is not rocket science. I think what is generally missing is just not really enjoying the process, or not having confidence about what you might be getting into. Everyone would like having the end result, or course, and I agree that a lot of people get into trouble because they over-estimate how much they value that end result. When effort and cost to get to the end start to mount, again it is natural to abandon, when you assess that you just don't care about the end result that much.

Regardless of all the above, however, it sounds like you want me to give a listing of effort so that fewer people will start projects, but my goal is to help folks that really want to do the the work themselves, so net-net, I think I'll generally keep any accounting of hours to myself.

Cheers,
Alex

 

Subject: Removing the main pumps-to-carbs fuel hose

Behold my vanquished foe at my feet!
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Circled in green, is the 3/8th-inch inner-diameter (5/8th-inch outer-diameter) hose that connects the fuel pumps in the left-rear wheel-well to the carbs (at least on LHD cars). The hose runs through a 3/4-inch inner-diameter pipe that goes through the left-hand door sill. That pipe make a slight bend as it goes into the sill at the rear, and a fairly sharp 90-degree bend upwards where in enters the engine compartment. Once the hose exits the pipe, it runs up over the brake booster, and across the fire-wall to the carbs.

In the picture above, the read dot marks the carb end, and as you can see it is a pretty long length of hose from there to the 90-degree bend in the pipe; the length with the orange line next tp it is the section of the hose that is right after the 90-degree, up through the vertical section of pipe, and then bending as it exits the pipe. On my car, the total length of the hose was 10-feet.

Getting this hose out took me several weeks, because rust had formed in the pipe and was basically "gripping" the hose. The part of the hose that ran through the sill and out the wheel-was was not so bad, so pulling on the wheel-well end resulted in a lot of hose stretching, and meant that pulling from that end made it hard to apply much force to area where the problematic rust was (which was more in the area of the 90-degree bend). If I pulled-up vertically from the engine-compartment end, I hit the resistance of the rust right away, so it was pretty apparent where the problem was.

I settled on a strategy of using a thin pipe to spray "PB Blaster" into the tiny gap between the hose and the wall of the pipe. I sprayed into the engine-compartment end, and kept adding PB Blaster until it began to drip out the wheel-well end of the pipe. Once the PB Blaster was in, I put the hose over one shoulder, around the back of my neck and then over the over shoulder (like you would a neck lanyard), crouched down, took-up the slack in the hose, and then did a "lift" with my legs. I would do the lift a few times, with the goal being just to get the hose to stretch enough to pull away from maybe 1/8th-inch of rust along the "gripped" length of hose; the idea was to have the PB Blaster work its way 1/8th-inch at a time down the entire rusted area. After a few lifts (one could generally hear the rust starting to break-up as you lifted), I would leave the whole thing alone for a couple of days, and then come back and repeat the process.

The main fuel line has both an internal embedded braid of fibers, and an outer-wrap of fabric; i.e., it is pretty tough. As a consequence, I was not too worried about breaking the hose, but was mindful of not pulling any harder than was necessary to feel the rust breaking up; if that hose did break way inside the pipe, it would be quite an adventure to get it out. That said, at first I started by just pulling on the hose with my hands, and I found that while one could hear rust scrapping against the hose, lifting with my legs gave much more of an impression that one was actually breaking bits of rust, so it did not take me long to switch-over to that method of pulling on the hose.

After a number of weeks of the above procedure, one day I actually felt the whole hose move 1/8th-inch, rather than just stretch and return to it original position. After another handful of PB Blaster applications, the hose started to move in earnest.

Quick tip: Once the hose starts to move, make sure you go back to the wheel-well end, and cut off the part of the hose that is "swelled" because if used to be over the hose-bard on the fuel pumps. If you don't, the hose might get stuck again when that swollen part of the hose gets to the rusted areas, and you may find yourself starting this process over again. Ask me how I know...

Once the hose was out, it was clear to see where the rust had pressed into the hose (and obvious why it took weeks to get the hose out):
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When I first looked at the hose, I did not notice any markings on it, but it turned out that some markings were there, but just really faded. The markings were long-gone from the section in the engine compartment for some reason, and with all the tugging and pulling, it was no surprise that the the section inside the pipe did not have any good copies of the markings left on it, but once it was wet with PB Blaster the section just before the the fuel pumps showed a nice set of intact markings:
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In addition, there were enough other partial sets to make it appear that the markings repeat about every 35cm.

 

Actually, if you check the diameters of the hose (outer) and the pipe (inner), you will see that there is a 1/8th-inch difference. That is not a lot, and with deformation of the hose and pipe due to bending, and rust on the inner surface of the pipe, one would likely have a hard time trying to pull a new hose through.

My solution was to clean the rust from the inside of the pipe, and after that it was possible to just push the new hose through (though it is a lot easier if you push from the engine-compartment end).

As for how I cleaned-out the rust, that will be the next follow-up post…

 

Ok, so here (finally) is an account of how I was able to clean-out the rust from the pipe that runs through the left-side sill. After going through everything below, it was no problem to push the new fuel line through the pipe. Note(#1) that it is a lot easier to push the hose from the engine-compartment end, because the main big "bend" in the pipe is right where the pipe goes into the sill; by pushing from the engine-compartment-end, it is a lot easier to fiddle-around with the orientation of the hose to get the end past that bend. Once the end is past the bend, it is easy to get the hose all the way out through the other end. Note(#2) that the length of the fuel line is basically 10-feet (3 meters).

To clean most of the rust out of the pipe, I cut-off the end of a 1-inch Flex-Hone and welded it to a coil "snake" that is sold for cleaning-out drain pipes:
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Note that the "bristles" on the Flex-Hone are actually plastic, so you can't let a lot of heat build-up in the Flex-Hone head when you do the weld, or all the bristles just melt off. You can see that even with a 0.3-sec MIG weld, something like 25% of the bristles melted off (before the welding, the bristles went almost all the way to where the weld is).. JB-Weld might work just as well; if the Flex-Hone head breaks off, you can probably just push it out with the snake. The twisted wire of the Flex-Hone is very stiff, and is not able to bend, but if you cut the Flex-Hone right at the base of the bristles, and weld that to the snake, the stiff part is short enough that it can get through all the bends in the fuel-line pipe.

To spin the Flex-Hone in the pipe, I just used a drill on the other end of the snake, and kept running the Flex-Hone until I stopped getting a lot of rust dust coming out when I blew compressed air through the pipe.
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The pic above shows not only the Flex-Hone on a snake, but also a pair of brushes on snakes (also welded on), and just a plane snake. I used the brushes to spread rust-converter around after I was done with the Flex-Hone, as well as to help clean the rust-converter out of the pipe after it had done its work. The rust-converter that I like is this one:
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Unlike a lot of others, this stuff seems to dissolve most of the rust, rather than convert it all into the usual black compound. Since I presume that this means that is has some acids in it, it seemed prudent to rinse as much of it out as possible. Where I live, flash-rust tends to form (literally) just minutes after bare mild steel is exposed to air. Because of this, I always rinse things with water that has been mixed with this stuff:
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I have no idea what it is, but it stops flash rust from happening, and does not seem to affect paint adhesion. I use it all the time, and it makes life a lot easier...

To do the rinsing, I just mixed the Metal Wash and water in a hand-held garden sprayer, and used the want to direct the mixture into the pipe from the engine-compartment end:
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To dry the inside of the pipe, I taped a wet-dry-vac to the end in the wheel-well, and let the vac run for maybe a hour.

To prime and paint the inside of the pipe, I used a big syringe and an appropriately sized tube to feed paint into the engine-compartment end of the pipe, and used the brush/snake/drill to distribute the primer/paint around. A big clear tube that was hose-clamped to the wheel-well end of the pipe kept the excess paint form going everywhere, and again, I used the wet-dry-vac to speed-up the drying of the paint. Note that I ran the brush/snake/drill in from the wheel-well end by going through the clamped clear tube and then into the pipe; this way, when you pull the snake out (and you have to move it in-and-out many times to distribute the paint and pull all the excess paint out) you can keep the exposed (and covered with paint) snake well away from any part of the car. I put about 125CCs of paint in for each coat, and found that a lot of excess still came out.
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Apologies for not taking more pictures of how things looked while I was doing the work. In the heat-of-battle, it never occurred to me to document, so most of these pics are of things that I pulled out of the trash long after I was finished...