Fuel and Oil Lines

As most know, Ferrari used special leather and wire wrapped hoses for the fuel and oil lines.  Several years ago, I replaced the fuel lines under the hood in the 330 GT.  So the process isn't anything new to me.

I went to unscrew the lines from the barbed fittings and they wouldn't budge. Further force just twisted the line apart near the fitting. I ended up applying some heat (about 10 seconds with a propane torch) on each ferrule. That was just enough so when the ferrule was turned in conjunction with the line, it unscrewed from the fitting. Sometimes the center section with the inner wire would remain attached while the outer section and ferrule came off. It took an hour or so, but finally all of the fittings were off and cleaned up.

I sent all of the ends and ferrules off the old lines out to be nickel plated.  This was an error as they should be cadmium plated.  I was mislead by a post by Tom Yang (http://www.tomyang.net/cars/ferrari187.htm), which he has now corrected.  Since these were already done, I decided to see what I could do to make them look like they were cad plated.  By using an aggressive silica grit in a sand blaster, it dulled the bright nickel into an even gray look that I consider acceptable.  Here are a couple of pictures, both before and after the blasting.

   

When I got the car, the line from the glass fuel filter to the fuel log was missing along with both of the ones for the remote filter.  I was able to get most of the correct fittings except a straight one for a line to the oil filter.  I did get some extra curved fittings, so I could make a straight one out one of those.  Here you can see the fitting I need at the top and the curved fitting that I used to start with.  After cutting it apart, I removed the nickel plating from the hose end and drilled a matching hole in the compression fitting end.  It's interesting that the line is steel, but both ends are brass that are brazed on.

Once the preparation was done, I silver soldered the two pieces together with this being the result with an original already made up.

   

Here's all of the old lines laid out with the correct fittings so I could figure out what fitting went with what hose.  I wish I would have taken pictures of each hose before taking the fittings off.  That would have made this job easier.

The other issue is that the current reproduction run of these lines are larger than the originals.  I got these from Rutland's and when I asked about larger ferrules, I was told that they were, one, out of stock and, two, not necessary.  As I tried to fit the ferrules over the new hoses, it was apparent that their second statement wasn't true.  One pair of the oil hose ferrules was just a bit larger, so I was able to make up one of the lines to the external oil filter.

I've been trying to figure out what to do about the ferrules.  I tried to use a stationary belt sander to narrow down the outside a little.  I also tried to use a Dremel with a little sanding drum to enlarge the inside of a ferrule.  Neither was successful.  A thread in Tom Yang's message board suggests using the next larger ferrule for each set of hoses and buying new ones for the largest (10mm) size, but they feel awfully loose when I tried them on.  I think that I'll call Rutland's and see if they have the right ferrules in stock now.

After reading a post in TYs message board, I got my ferrules from McMaster-Carr.  Since these come in bags, I ended up with 50 for the oil lines (needed 4) and 25 each for the fuel lines (needed 6 each).  So if anybody else is replacing their oil or fuel lines, I've got plenty left over.  The sizes I got were:

The diameters are fine, with a little force fit to get them onto the lines. The two larger sizes are too long and I'll have to cut them to length.  Once that is done, I'll have to have them plated and I can finish the oil and fuel lines.

I decided that the easiest way to cut the ferrules to length was to use a band saw.  Bad decision, the teeth of the saw blade would snag the ferrule and bend it, even through I had a dowel inside to prevent that from happening.  Good thing that they were packaged so I had spares.

The next pass was a little more sophisticated, but more Rube Golderberg-ish.  I found some metal rods that were just about the right ID to fit tight in each size of ferrule.  A little help with the disk sander had them fitting tight.  Then it was possible to chuck the rod in the drill press and have it turning slowly.  A cut-off tool clamped in the milling table allowed it to be fed into the ferrule just enough to cut through the brass.

After that was done, I used a belt sander to grind off the excess down to the proper length.  Then I used a tapered grinding stone to clean up the inside and a sanding drum on the Dremel for the outside.  A pass through the bead blaster left a nice even surface ready for plating.

   

Al Pezzella had the same issue when replacing the fuel lines on his 330 GT.  He ended up using a copper tubing cutter with a properly sized dowel inside.  It cut cleanly and just needed a Dremel to clean up the burr left on the inside

I got the ferrules cad plated and went to put everything together.  My 'patented' assembly method using PVC pipe doesn't work so well when both ends are banjo fittings.  As you can see, the pipe is captured in between the two fittings and I had to cut it lengthwise in order to remove it.

The oil lines were fine, but I made a mistake on the 8mm fuel lines.  I ended up cutting in the wrong place.  As my Dad always said, measure twice and cut once, or else, Damn, I've cut three times and it is still too short. 

You can see the two extra pieces in the upper left.  If anybody needs a short section of 8mm yellow hose, let me know.  The only place I can imagine where they could be used is the short pieces between the GTE and early 330 GT fuel rail sections.  Since the piece I need is 20" long, that was a $200 mistake.  So the last line will have to wait until I order a piece of hose.

Here's the final section.