Replacing fuel hose from pump to hard line - '63 Wildcat

Discussion in 'Classic Buicks' started by CTWildcat, Jun 10, 2021.

  1. CTWildcat

    CTWildcat Active Member

    Wanted to share my experience replacing this fuel hose since I could find nothing on the forums here about this procedure. It's a job that might seem fairly straightforward but for an amateur like me turned out to be more trouble than I had bargained for. Hopefully this will help someone avoid making the same mistakes I did.

    I had been meaning to replace this section of hose pretty much since I bought this car in '09. Somehow I managed to put it off for nearly 12 years and was lucky it never caused me trouble in all that time. But this thing was nasty:
    IMG_0544.JPG IMG_0545.JPG IMG_0546.JPG
    I'm not sure the pictures do it justice--it was gross, filthy, moldy, cracked, etc... almost definitely the 58 year old original and maybe the weakest link on the whole car, so after doing a bunch of work under the hood this spring it was finally time to get it done. Not really knowing how long this hose was, I got 6' from NAPA and that turned out to be enough to replace this section as well as the section from the top of the fuel pump to the fuel filter and still have a bit left over. Original hose measures roughly 55".

    After botching my first attempt and spilling gas everywhere this was the method that worked for me. I clamped the hose shut with vice grips about an inch or two beyond where the hard line ends. Then I disconnected the hose at the bottom of the fuel pump and let it drain into a bottle. Once it stopped dripping it was time to remove the hose by pulling from the bottom. But before you can snake it through there are two clamps to worry about. The first one is down at the bottom of the firewall, next to the bend in the frame and above the exhaust pipe:
    IMG_0542D.JPG
    This one is no big deal as it's easy to reach and the hose just slips in and out of it. The real pain of this operation is this one:
    IMG_0541D.JPG
    This one is up inside the frame and held on with a 7/16" head screw. I was barely able to get a short-handled 1/4" drive ratchet on it and I maybe had an inch or two range of motion on the handle, so it's a very slow and awkward removal. Getting it back on might have been worse than removing it, because once your hand is up there you can't see what you're doing.

    Before pulling the old hose through, I tied a string around the detached fuel pump end and tied the other end of the string to my new hose, in order to help get the new one routed properly. Once it was situated, I fastened the new hose to the fuel pump outlet, got the two clamps on, then cut the hose to the proper length by lining it up along the hardline. Then it was just a matter of swapping the old hose for the new one at the hard line.

    Now--those with more experience probably know to do this job with a nearly empty tank, or maybe disconnect something at the tank through the trunk access, but I was winging it and probably did not do myself any favors by doing this with 3/4 tank. As I discovered on my first botched attempt, the gas REALLY shoots out of that hard line once you remove the hose. So you've got to be like Indiana Jones swapping the golden idol for the bag of sand. Even being prepared the second time around I spilled more gas than I would have liked but I did have a catch pan ready and waiting.
    IMG_0543D.JPG
    Once the new hose was on I released the vice grips on the old hose and let whatever gas was left in there drain into a container. Felt good to check this one off the list!
     
    322bnh and Max Damage like this.

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