The Ford Capri Laser Page

Oh dear….
I strongly suggest you all have a good eyeball of your fuel lines. These aren’t very old (but pre ethanol) and clearly have taken the right hump (to ethanol in the fuel?) and have perished badly. Caught it before any disaster occurred and all that expensive petrol decided outside the pipe is much more entertaining.

Check them out people, at best a loss of expensive petrol and a breakdown. At worst…well… it’s a bad day all round

That’s all….carry on.

Crikey!
Thanks for the heads up.
The chap in my local garage has told me that he's seen very rapid deterioration of rubber pipes due to ethanol. I would suggest that regular checking could be the order of the day.

Andrew.

I work on classic cars and have seen a lot of this over the last couple of years, not sure it is the Ethanol or just pipes that are of a lesser quality than ones that were fitted originally. I have started fitting PTFE with Stainless overlay on some cars, not cheap but eliminates the problem for ever.

Andrew 2.8i wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 5:17 pm The chap in my local garage has told me that he's seen very rapid deterioration of rubber pipes due to ethanol.

When I see comments like that it tends to get my cynical roll eyes going. Not with you Andrew, but with your garage chap, he can't know that it's down to the ethanol can he, he can't do, he's just making that up, I seem to see ethanol blamed for all kinds of things. Just as SCP440 has said above, could just be something else. Or that everyone is checking their hoses more now so obviously more faults will be found that may have otherwise remained undetected.

Very worthwhile thread/post of course, it's a good heads up for sure.

B@fink wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 4:15 pm Oh dear….

700D04C0-59C8-4A63-B108-E13FA12389CF.jpeg

I strongly suggest you all have a good eyeball of your fuel lines. These aren’t very old (but pre ethanol) and clearly have taken the right hump (to ethanol in the fuel?) and have perished badly. Caught it before any disaster occurred and all that expensive petrol decided outside the pipe is much more entertaining.

Check them out people, at best a loss of expensive petrol and a breakdown. At worst…well… it’s a bad day all round

That’s all….carry on.

I've had similar issues going back some years. I think it is as much unleaded fuel as ethanol. Anyway, you want to get a decent quality R9 rated pipe. Yours looks like it is R6 but keep tabs on them anyway.

Not sure the Ethanol is totally to blame as I have seen fuel lines go like this when we still had leaded petrol, it normally happens on old fuel line where it has a bend in it and over time with constant hot and cold cycles and age it cracks on the outside, only ever seen a couple that went all the way through and leaked though, I'm currently in the process of replacing all my fuel lines with R9 rated pipe just to be on the safe side.

Wayne

Along with some other work in the Autumn, mine is having R9 hose fitted as currently R6, and I only use Super Unleaded (E5) now.

andyd wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 8:06 am Along with some other work in the Autumn, mine is having R9 hose fitted as currently R6, and I only use Super Unleaded (E5) now.

Hi Andy,

Depending on where you live you could use the Esso stuff which has no Ethanol at all - if you can afford the bloody stuff that is!

Wayne

Mr B wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 9:59 am

andyd wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 8:06 am Along with some other work in the Autumn, mine is having R9 hose fitted as currently R6, and I only use Super Unleaded (E5) now.

Hi Andy,

Depending on where you live you could use the Esso stuff which has no Ethanol at all - if you can afford the bloody stuff that is!

Wayne

Hi Wayne,
Like a few other areas in the country we don't have ethanol free fuel in Devon, and as you say Esso prices aren't cheap anyway!

andyd wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:23 am

Mr B wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 9:59 am

andyd wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 8:06 am Along with some other work in the Autumn, mine is having R9 hose fitted as currently R6, and I only use Super Unleaded (E5) now.

Hi Andy,

Depending on where you live you could use the Esso stuff which has no Ethanol at all - if you can afford the bloody stuff that is!

Wayne

Hi Wayne,
Like a few other areas in the country we don't have ethanol free fuel in Devon, and as you say Esso prices aren't cheap anyway!

Tbh I'd take Ethanol in the petrol to live in Devon - absolutely beautiful part of the country

Wayne

Hi all,
Currently using esso super unleaded but will still change fuel lines to R9 but noticed that there are different bore sizes. What size are fitted to a 1600 laser.

Thanks
Allan

Those pipes were only a couple of years old, I only run super (so e5 or lower) since the swap was force on us and they were all appropriately marked as R6, so suitable for unleaded. Probably only a few hundred miles on them. I’ve replaced with R9, which is more than double the price compare to R6. Better than flambé but still….ouch!

Hence my “check your pipes” heads up, if they were that perished that fast on E5 only it’s got to be worth a check for everyone.

The fuel/ethanol doesn't come into contact with the outside of the hoses, and that's what has perished in the pic. it is something else that's caused that, or/and poor quality of the hoses as mentioned.

Couple of points:
Don't forget that the Ethanol-free Esso fuel is still marked as E5 for some obscure reason, so don't take the E5 bit as gospel.
Also, you'd better all pray it's not the ethanol doing that or your carburettors or metering units will soon turn into sieves!

pbar wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 7:31 am The fuel/ethanol doesn't come into contact with the outside of the hoses, and that's what has perished in the pic. it is something else that's caused that, or/and poor quality of the hoses as mentioned.

And yet the spec for R6 pipe says it has a much higher diffusion value for fuel through the pipe than R9…I read that as fuel does evaporate right through to the outer layer which is made of different compound, possibly more vulnerable to ethanol. Cause, I could be reading that wrong, I’m not a pipe engineer just a layman reading the SAE specification for each type of pipe and trying to figure out why my lightly used, unleaded safe pipe labelled as such with safety markings that was new when fitted and hasn’t been exposed to anything was turning into a teabag. Whatever, and either way round, just check your pipes. I don’t want to see photos of crispy cars. It would upset me.

I had this happen to my Escort mk3 with one pipe I replaced last year from Halfords last year. I only noticed as I decided to replace all the other old pipes (which still said Ford on them) and was shocked to see they were in better condition than the pipe thats less than a year old! I'm wondering if its the heat from the engine as the little 1.1 gets quite hot. It was exactly like the picture in the first post.

I overheard someone at a carshow recently saying he had changed his fuel lines to R9 and he would now treat it as a serviceable item with more frequent checks/replacement.

Still on the subject of fuel lines . I have a 1973 british bike , restored 20yrs ago . Fuel line still good after 20yrs and running e10 no aditives . Last bike i restored 5yrs ago , fuel lines lasting 6mth .