i mentioned previously that i wasnae totally convinced that the new leak-off pipes i’d fitted to the injectors were tight enough to make a completely airtight seal and, sure enough, when i was tinkering about with the alternator drive belt earlier in the day, i’d notcied that there was a bit of diesel leaking out around the pipes, where they pushed onto the injector bleed nipples.
not having any hoseclips of a suitably petite size, i did what i do best - botched the fucker improvised cleverly; i got some fancy thickish wire that mazza had left over from when she did a jewellery course at college a while back - and i wired the ends of all the leak-off pipes, to stop them pulling off the nipples and hopefully give a better seal.
improvisation across the nation!
about the same time i scored my non-return fuel valve off ebay [see the point of non-return ], i also ordered a shitload of new fuel lines from butts of bawtry, as i was fully prepared to have to rip out all herman’s fuel lines and replace the lot since, up to that point, i had had no luck whatsoever in trying to banish the accursed bubbles from his fuel system - in spite of having crawled all over it, checking and tightening every bloody inch of the damn thing.
exciting new toys - a huge stash of new fuel line.
as luck would have it [and again, i’m writing this far off in the distant future, so i know how things turned out], the non-return valve fixed all the problems, so i didnae need most of the fuel line i bought, after all. still, i s’pose it’s handy to have around. i’ll doubtless find some use for it.
however, i did get to put some of it to good use; as well as sooking air in due to gravity draining diesel out of the injector pump, i was also pretty sure that air was getting in around the injectors themselves, as the leak-off pipes were all pretty knackered looking.
the leak-off pipes are the small curved tubes, you can see arcing between the injectors. they catch any un-used diesel from the injectors and feed it back into the fuel filter again. obviously if they’re not air-tight, they’ll be depositing some nice juicy air bubbles back into the fuel system as well.
as well as my half a kilometre of chunky new fuel pipe, i’d also ordered a couple of metres
of new leak-off pipe too. so, even if i wasnae yet ready to embark on replacing the whole fuel-line kaboodle [at least until i’d waited to see if the fitting of the non-return valve bore fruit], i thought i’d replace the leak-off pipes for now.
old leak-off pipes removed. all a bit shoddy and decrepit looking and the one second from the right was already sporting a temporary ‘botch’ repair that i’d had to do, when it split on me, in the middle of anglesey.making up some replacement leak-off pipes from my new fuel line stash
new leak-off pipage fitted. that should keep the wolf [in the form of air bubbles] from the door [in the form of the fuel filter] for a while.i’ll probably revisit the leak-off pipes at a later date and add some clips or wire ties to hold them tighter in place. although i
bought the correct diameter pipes, they weren’t as firm or hard to squeeze on to the bleed nipples on the top of the injectors as i’d hoped and expected. so i’m not entirely convinced that they couldnae work loose with a few hundred miles of engine vibration underneath them.
[* the title of this post is a hilarious pun, that you’ll only get if you know ‘norn iron’ slang]
