Of course it is a Fiat

This afternoon, my young protege Chase came by my warehouse. I was more than happy to show him the X1/9. The car delighted me while we took corners around the early evening comuter traffic that is uniquely South Los Angeles. Prior to leaving, we took off the Targa top and enjoyed the open air driving aided by the power windows at full down. We only took the car a couple of miles, and that was a wise choice. However, being in the company of a friend, I did let the motor grunt a bit by drawing revs up to 7,500 RPM. Oh what a symphony!

After Chase left, I distinctly smelled a strong odor of gas. Looking under the car, I was rewarded with a nice puddle of accumulating fluid. Having been into the bowels of a Fiat time and again, I thought, "ohh how cute, something to fix..." Famous last words.

The braided fuel hose from the tank to the fuel pump was leaking at the upright fuel pump connection. I have experience changing fuel filters, and hoses, so I was not too worried about the work. In fact, some caution and preparation would have served me well. I pulled the car into the warehouse a bit, and left the engine compartment in the alley to keep the dripping gas out in the alley way to dry. After jacking up the car, and putting it on jack stands I got under the car with an assortment of tools I thought I would need. Of course I had a flat head screw driver, a drop light, and a 1/4 ratchet and set of sockets. What I didn't bring was common sense! After visualy seeing the leak, I decided in some state of stupidity that I would squeeze the hose.......

The hose instantly debrised into dropping rubber bits within a stream of gas coming from the tank. I'm a shade tree mechanic, and have some fine wins to my belt. An assisted rebuild on a 350 Chevy (thanks dad), a built Honda Integra, 50k self maintained miles on a Mercedes, but nothing will drop your confidence like a stream of gas. I quickly did a mental check of potential fire sources, and gave some thought of how to plug the stream.

I secured some spare bolts lying around a new clamp and a razor blade. The last thing I grabbed was a spark plug that had been changed from the new head job. Little did I know that my last thought was the best. I tried inserting a number of like sized objects to the degraded hose but found myself short on size. Like sticking your finger in a dam. Finally the spark plug made a good fix to slow the stream to a drip. In no time, I found that my arms itched, and worse, my right eye was stinging from the coating of petrol on my eyelid. I washed up cursing myself for not foreseeing this, and made a quick post on Xweb to know what I was looking for.



I decided that I wanted this done tonight and wasted time going to a Autozone and a closed Kragen to buy the correct hose. No such luck the correct 12mm size hose was not stocked. At this time, the car sits in the warehouse, with a clamp on the spark plugged fuel hose, and the writer itching at chemically burned skin. Of course it is a Fiat.