Oil & Fuel fuel lines

[hd5]

I have a 135 gas Continental and have worked on the fuel lines several times and would like to replace them with braided steel lines.

As close as that fuel line runs to the muffler and exhaust manifold is that safe?

The original steel rusted out, I made new ones out of copper. Somewhere along the line in the past 25 years I used some rubber hose and added an inline filter. Bad idea, almost burned the tractor up, grabbed a five gallon bucket of water out of the swimming pool and put it out....:ashamed:


I eventually bought steel bendable brake line and that is still doing fine. But I just put a brand new carburetor on it and am back to wishing it had an inline filter. There is not enough room for my extra large hands to put a filter inline using the solid steel lines.

I have looked online at the race car fuel lines and wondered if I could use those.

 

[davesl708]

I am not familiar with your tractor but could the in-line filter be located back closer to the tank to make it easier to access? Or maybe a Racor filter?
Race car fuel lines should work fine.

 

[hd5]

The tank sits directly above the carburetor and the petcock is at the back of the tank and barely has any room at all. I was looking for something that I could put an inline filter in and then pull the line through and connect to the carburetor.

The rubber fuel line worked great for that right up until it cracked open, dripped onto the manifold and caused a fireball.. I had even transitioned to steel where it went over the manifold and muffler.

 

[davesl708]

Perhaps a adding a heat shield between the manifold and hose. Tight spaces seem to be by design on machinery.

 

[Kenneth S]

The steel braided lines used on most racecars are still rubber lined, you can get AN hose that is PTFE (Teflon) lined. If you should kink a PTFE lined hose it will eventually leak where it was kinked, plus its not quite as flexible as rubber hose because of the PTFE lining. The steel braiding won't protect it from heat, it just makes the hose less likely to burst under pressure, but they still have to be replaced on a regular basis.

 

[hd5]

I was hoping those braided ones were indestructible....
There is a heat shield, still gets hot.
It has to make too many turns and tight spaces to add a filter, it is fairly difficult to get the steel lines from the sediment bowl to the carburetor even without a filter.
which is why I am trying to find something flexible that won't catch on fire.
Thanks

 

[Jerry/MT]

I used a small section of rubber hose on my TO-30 and cut it so the filter was under the battery box I used steel line when it got near the manifold the rest of the way to the carb inlet. I used a small lawnmower filter in the rubber tube section and fuel line clamps. It has worked for me for 12 years without any problems.

 

[PILOON]

Shame you were not closer as I have some WW2 flexible brass fuel line that was used on early British aircraft.
It is inner steel braiding covered with brass accordion like material.
It does however want some sort of special fittings for the ends.
I somehow think the brand name was Titeflex.

I googled and found thisI was right=Titeflex)

Corrugated Metal Hose from Flextrol | Flextrol