I started up my truck Tuesday morning & took off towards work as I usually do, and I get a faint smell of fuel as I'm making my way out of the neighborhood. Thinking it's just a fluke, I press on. As I leave the neighborhood, the smell is VERY strong now and the fuel pressure gauge is sitting at about 20psi, so I pull off the road checking my gauge thinking it came loose or something. Since it's mounted right over the vent intake and the weather was really nice so I was running just the vent, I thought for sure that would be it. It wasn't....

I open the hood and see what looks like a sprinkler head spraying fuel all over my engine bay. I limp it back to the house leaving a trail of fuel from the house to where I stopped, then back around the block.

Turns out the Parker sleeve in the compression fitting on my RR that tees into the return line gave up and the tube pulled right out of it... Here's the old sleeve next to a new one.



Got a couple new ones from Stuart Hose here in Ft. Worth. Anyone in the DFW area needing tubing/hose parts should go there. They have pretty much anything we could use. Good people.

 

Look at the bright side Joe. It's a great degreaser...

My worst fuel leak was at 95 MPH on a 95* day 300 miles from home. Turned out the epoxy in the old style ITP return line failed. It was like a drinking fountain under the hood.

My buddy was freaking out wondering why I was swerving from the fast lane to the exit in about 100 yards at that speed... Got some epoxy from WalMart and was back on the road in about an hour.

 

Yep -- after a bunch of Simple Green, it looks pretty good under there.

And I'm VERY glad it happened in the driveway this week and not during the ~3000 mile trip I was on last month...

EDIT: I guess the lesson here is a small assortment of Parker sleeves might be good to keep on hand. I've already had to replace all the ones on my fuel bowl.

 

Stuart Hose is a great bunch.I spend LOTS of company money with them...I deal with Mike Castle....Great guy and knows his stuff.

What size is that Joe?

 

That particular one is 5/16ths. Our trucks also have 3/8ths & 1/4" sleeves. At the bowl & heads where the fuel lines connect....

 

I bought that whole set from Guzzles so I should be good right now until I install a RR.

 

By the way Barry, you coming out to the North Texas PowerStroke Rally this weekend out in Caddo Mills? I know Chris is, and I'll be there.

 

I guess I will miss again...Damnit...I will be putting sheet metal on my 30x80 shop....YEEEEEHAA

 

Nice.... Alright, well if you won't come up this way, I guess we'll have to have a mod party down there one of these days. Especially with that big ol' shop...

 

That is exactly what I am building it for.So we can get out off the dirt floor of my barn and work where it is nice.
It will have three bays,office with bathroom/shower.
Come on down

 

and

Bowl Delete

 

Not to be dumb, but what is a parker sleeve? How did you use it in your regulated return? I'm curious because I would like to see if it's something you had done that would be better than the way I pieced together my regulted return.

 

Look/read here.

Replacement O-rings for Ford Diesel Engines

 

Are the fuel related common mods prone to failure?

 

Depends how it's done I guess. If you put in post filtering somewhere after the pump, then fine. The thing is there's really nothing wrong with the stock fuel bowl. It's working for me at 450 rwhp. If it cracks or something, then I'd ditch it for something else, but for now, I ain't fixing what ain't broke...