Fuel smell in the garage

The last couple of days there was a petrol smell in the garage, after a bit of searching I found there was a weep on the fuel return line at the tank where there is a short section of rubber hose.

It would normally be easy enough to find my fuel hose, I keep it in this box. 



However we are moving house and I have started to pack up the contents of the garage. Luckily I only had to open ten boxes before finding it.





I hope there's not 50l of petrol swilling round in the garage tomorrow morning, already tried pinching up the hose clips with no joy.

Car up on the ramp.



This is the problem, surprising as its only 6 years old.



I drained out ~50l into two 25l containers.



Cut a new piece of hose and fitted it.



An easy repair that was extended by the hour it took to drain the tank.

Hi Jim,

I once wondered about fuel smell from a car and found a similar situation:  a fuel line, that I had replaced only a few years ago, started to disintegrate.
I blamed the quality of the fuel line - I had bought it as a no-name product from a local car parts dealer. Now I bought Continental and Cohline fuel lines and hope that they will serve me better.

Cheers,
Lutz

Hi Lutz,

The surprising thing was that this is Cohline 2122.



Perhaps the hose clip was too tight.

Hi Jim,

I do not use fuel hose with loose textile wrapping any more. It gets soft and then you have leakage or blockage. Such a 5 years old hose has once made me look like a fool on the occasion of my very 1st D-Jetronic workshop on vdh Pfingsten meeting. Just after I arrived it blocked reflow to tank and my 450 SL ran like a Diesel. People were joking with me that I should see a D-Jetronic specialist.

I only use fuel hoses with 2 rubber mixtures NBR inside and another outside plus enforcing tissue in between like this one . It costs much more but I have better experience. Blockage happened at a  place where I should have used a 90° molded hose. But leakage happend at other places.

Hi Jim, Volker,

had exactly the same experience with the fabric wrapped fuel hose. I purchased mine directly from MB and after max 3 years the rubber was worn along the weave lines of the fabric. Interesting other people had the same problem.

Cheers,

Phil

I can second that. Those braided  hoses are from the 1950´s and I always wonder why they are still sold nowadays. Maybe in the good ole times the rubber was better or the gas was not as agressive as today, but still this type of hose is just for the bin. Take a hose like Volker suggests and you´ll avoid those problems in future.