Fuel line leaking, how to access clamp?

Hi all,

 

I have an old legacy, and in cold weather recently I started smelling fuel in my car.

 

I popped open the engine bay, and was able to identify a slow bubbling of fuel from a line under the intake manifold near the driver side.

 

I guess this is a common problem in cold weather where the rubber lines shrink down and the clamps get a little loose.

 

In warm weather now I'm not seeing any leaking at all, but want to tighten it up before it gets cold again in case this happens again. (Who knows, maybe it will resolve itself and it was only in extremely cold temps).

 

I'm trying to access the phillips head screw, but only have ~ 1/2 - 3/4" of clearance to get to it in a very tight space to tighten it.

 

Any tips? I really really really don't want to have to take this to someone to disassemble the intake manifold.

 

Video of location here: https://vimeo.com/251690601

 

I tried using an offset phillips wrench, but it was a little too deep at ~ 1 1/8".

Any other tips for getting in there? Has anyone dealt with the same?

In my hands, those lines were impossible to access without taking the manifold off. Taking the manifold isn’t a difficult job but a time consuming one and you need to label all the detached lines. I labeled and took pictures of every line before taking the manifold off. I don’t know if anyone has any tips on repairing that without the manifold coming off...second time I removed the manifold was for TGV delete and fuel rail install. Either way, I’m pretty sure the easiest and cleanest way is to remove that manifold.

 

 

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You only need to take off the top plastic part of the manifold, that's much easier, you can even unbolt it and simply loosen some of the wiring and hoses to tilt it back (instead of totally disconnecting and taking it off). This should be a pretty small job, you'll need to take off the TMIC and maybe the turbo inlet, but otherwise keep it simple since you're only working on the clamp itself.

 

OR, throw some mods on while its apart

Yep. Happens. Max used safety wire to close some of those weeping suckers. Otherwise you or a qualified person needs to take the manifold off. It's not hard. Just time consuming.Only need a small number of tools.

On 2/12/2018 at 3:11 PM, Max Capacity said:

Were you not able to get the clamp tight enough or is the wire just for redundancy? 

Unable to tighten the upside down screw, see the clamp.  When I had the engine out with the intake manifold on the bench, I spun those clamps around so I could tighten them from the top.

On 1/26/2018 at 1:22 PM, l88m22vette said:

You only need to take off the top plastic part of the manifold, that's much easier, you can even unbolt it and simply loosen some of the wiring and hoses to tilt it back (instead of totally disconnecting and taking it off). This should be a pretty small job, you'll need to take off the TMIC and maybe the turbo inlet, but otherwise keep it simple since you're only working on the clamp itself.

 

OR, throw some mods on while its apart

I think the procedure is not exactly the same for 2005-2006 LGT and 2007-2009 LGT.  The fuel pipes are not the same.  I think for 2007-2009, you have to take the TGV, fuel line/rail, etc. off with the intake manifold as an assembly.

11 hours ago, Max Capacity said:

Unable to tighten the upside down screw, see the clamp.  When I had the engine out with the intake manifold on the bench, I spun those clamps around so I could tighten them from the top.

 

Alright, my fix for the silly thing was to use a wing nut and two nuts on the bolt, jam it all together and then rotate the win nut to tighten the bolt.  There was simply no way to get even the smallest of screwdrivers where it needed to be to get to the head of the bolt.  Fuel drip fixed.

8 hours ago, ssbtech said:

 

Alright, my fix for the silly thing was to use a wing nut and two nuts on the bolt, jam it all together and then rotate the win nut to tighten the bolt.  There was simply no way to get even the smallest of screwdrivers where it needed to be to get to the head of the bolt.  Fuel drip fixed.

I was removing my intake manifold on my 2007-2008 for the first time and some of those clamps are hard to access with a screw driver.  I'll have to position them better so the intake manifold removal is much easier the next time around.

Cold weather is here and now the clamp below and behind the purge control solenoid is leaking...

Just never ends.

I wonder how many others that are impossible to get to are in a similar state

I dunno if it's known here, but there is a TSB for the cold weather fuel line seepage.  I believe the recommendation is to replace the hoses.

I wish they'd do a full recall on it so I don't have to worry about them.

There probably weren't enough cars that burned to the ground to make it a full recall.  Even in Seattle my third gen fuel lines seep occasionally and I don't think we are in the TSB's locale... think it specifically mentions the new england states.  I have all the new hoses/clamps from the TSB just... haven't bothered since I'm pretty sure the intake manifold has to come off and I'm kinda lazy working on my own cars.

Mine is full blown pouring out, now. It’s 12 deg today, has been in the single digits, and around 0 at night, since Friday. I don’t really have the inclination to take the manifold off in this weather, but it might have to happen. 
 

 

 

15 minutes ago, tehspud said:

Mine is full blown pouring out, now. It’s 12 deg today, has been in the single digits, and around 0 at night, since Friday. I don’t really have the inclination to take the manifold off in this weather, but it might have to happen. 
 

 

IMG_1476.mov 36.13 MB · 0 downloads  

 

Holy crap, that's a full on leak!  
That's actually fairly easy to fix.  My photo earlier in this thread (https://www.legacygt.com/topic/124818-fuel-line-leaking-how-to-access-clamp/#comment-2810256) shows that clamp that's leaking.  

Get some M4 0.7 wingnuts and thread it onto the upside-down bolt securing the clamp to the hose/pipe.  A wingnut driver will make this easier too.  

In my picture, I threaded on a couple of nuts to jam the wingnut to the clamp bolt, but for the second one I had to repair I had too little space and instead used a dab of red loctite.  Let that sit for a couple of hours, then you'll have the wingnut secured to the bolt sufficiently that you can turn it to tighten the clamp.  

 

 

 

23 minutes ago, ssbtech said:

Holy crap, that's a full on leak!  
That's actually fairly easy to fix.  My photo earlier in this thread (https://www.legacygt.com/topic/124818-fuel-line-leaking-how-to-access-clamp/#comment-2810256) shows that clamp that's leaking.  

Get some M4 0.7 wingnuts and thread it onto the upside-down bolt securing the clamp to the hose/pipe.  A wingnut driver will make this easier too.  

In my picture, I threaded on a couple of nuts to jam the wingnut to the clamp bolt, but for the second one I had to repair I had too little space and instead used a dab of red loctite.  Let that sit for a couple of hours, then you'll have the wingnut secured to the bolt sufficiently that you can turn it to tighten the clamp.  

 

 

 

I'll definitely look into doing this. I just went back out and managed to get my smallest vice grips onto the clamp fastener, and painstakingly tighten it 1/8 turn at a time. Didn't see any leaking on startup, I've got to do a short drive in a bit, so we'll see after that. 

Ultimately the hoses will need to be replaced as they lose resiliency over time.  I think the clamps also loosen up a little too adding to the problem.

The one that got me this time was to the left of the alternator below the intake manifold.  There's another one right in front of it and two more behind the alternator to the right.  With some creativity I don't think you'd have to pull the manifold to get to them.

I have enough other stuff to do that pulling the manifold will make easier that I’ll just set a weekend in the spring to get it all done, and replace those hoses and put better clamps on them and safety wire it. Just go full nuclear option. 

I had to start, starting mine few times a week to make sure the hoses were ok.

Be careful trying to flip the stock claps over. I tried last time and ended up putting them back together how they come stock... Essentially upside down when the manifold is installed.

No matter what I was doing the extended threads would bump into something or another, not optimal. Even after cutting down the screw.