Nomad final assembly

[chevynut]

I finished the wiring on the driver's side and got the hood release set up. It was a bit of a challenge getting all the fan and horn wiring from the relay box into the radiator support. I also hooked up the temperature sensor for the mirror. The front end electrical is now all ready to test. I have designed all the tubes for the A/C and PCV and will have them bent up locally. I could do it myself but I need some tighter bends than my benders will do on the #8 A/C lines.

[WagonCrazy]

Ignore these clowns Laszlo. I have them on permanent ignore and NEVER see their comments ANYWHERE on here. It's great.
Don't waste your energy on them.
Keep on posting on your progress here. The Nomad you are building is a work of art, and will be a drivable animal soon.

[chevynut]

Ignore these clowns Laszlo. I have them on permanent ignore and NEVER see their comments ANYWHERE on here. It's great.
Don't waste your energy on them. Keep on posting on your progress here. The Nomad you are building is a work of art, and will be a drivable animal soon.

Thanks Paul. I have been trying to bit my tongue but had enough of it. And yes, it's the same three as before. I'd prefer if Sid would remove all of his comments and my replies to him from all my threads, but at least one of them would call that "censorship". Looks like I may not have to put up with one of them anymore.

[chevynut]

Last night I was up late working on testing my front end electrical stuff out. I found and fixed a couple of issues and now my fans and horns work like they're supposed to.

I had two warning lights on the VHX instruments, one "check engine" and the other was a "brake" warning. I don't have any brake fluid in the reservoir yet, so I pulled the cap off and tested the float and it works to turn the light off. I also plan to add an e-brake warning switch.

The "check engine" light is connected to my ECU output that I've programmed to give an over-temperature warning, but that wasn't the problem. It's also connected to my hood open sensor, so I defeated that....but the light stayed on. The only thing still connected was the coolant level sensor in the recovery tank. I drained the tank and pulled the sensor, and as I moved the float up and down the light would go off an on. But it's BACKWARDS! The sensor makes contact to ground with the tank is FULL, not empty. I used a BMW sensor and thought I had checked to make sure it worked correctly years ago, but it doesn't. I put the sensor in the bottom of the tank, but apparently BMW put it in the top of the tank facing down. I need to invert that signal now to make it work like it's supposed to. Not sure how I over-looked that since it was so long ago.

But the biggest problem.......

When I turned the key on the fuel pump ran, but I noticed it sounded a little different than it has in the past. It seemed to run longer before it got to pressure. I didn't think much about it and started checking out the lights, then I smelled gas. I was afraid I was having a repeat of the problem I had at the gas tank with the Summit braided stainless hose. So I looked under the car to see if there was any fuel back there. What I saw was fuel all over the floor up by the engine.

That GODDAM SUMMIT RACING BRAIDED STAINLESS HOSE FAILED AGAIN!

I was afraid this might happen after having it fail back at the tank. But this is more critical since the fuel lines run right over the headers and behind the intake to the fuel rail.

20170207_007.JPG

This is the second failure of the Summit Racing hose and I'm abandoning it altogether. I replaced it in the rear with Earl's fuel hose but in front I'm going with teflon braided. The Summit hose must be sourced from one of the other suppliers, but I don't know who. This is the hose I used....DO NOT USE IT!

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-230610

These rubber stainless braided hoses supposedly have a CPE (Chlorinated Polyethylene) inner tube and are supposed to be resistant to ethanol, gasoline, diesel, oil, etc. I have a bunch of -6AN teflon braided stainless hose that I plan to use. It's mostly for power steering and other high pressure applications, but I don't trust ANY rubber hose at this point. I just have to find the right hose ends to make it work, and not all ends are offered for the teflon hose.

Always two steps forward and one step back.

[WagonCrazy]

Ouch! But hey look at it this way. At least you found out about this subpar hose NOW before you were out on the road with a car on fire...
FWIW, I used a short pre-made teflon hose at the fuel rail connection area. Hasn't leaked a bit. And it passes directly over the passenger side header.

[55 Rescue Dog]

That type of hose is still rubber and if you are using ethanol, it will eat it up even faster and even regular fuel it will permeate through it. They say it can be used with ethanol, but it is probably only good for a couple of years. Should be using PTFE hose which is what they use on modern cars which is supposed to last the life of the car.

[chevynut]

That type of hose is still rubber and if you are using ethanol, it will eat it up even faster and even regular fuel it will permeate through it. They say it can be used with ethanol, but it is probably only good for a couple of years.

I don't know if it's technically a "rubber" because I think it's all synthetic material. Regardless, they shouldn't even be selling this stuff for use for fuel lines if that's the case and they only last a couple of years. Pretty much every manufacturer of that type of hose uses CPE liners and nobody says there's a limited life or not to use them with ethanol fuel (E10). At a minimum there should be a disclaimer to NOT use it with pump gas with ethanol in it, if that's a problem. The lines I took off of the fuel tank are really hardened their whole length. As far as I know lots of guys have used this type of hose on their cars. Here's a spec sheet for a hose with CPE liner that says it's compatible even with E85.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0414/1681/8852/files/AN_Braided_Fuel_Lines_Tech_Sheet.pdf?v=1619106775


I've searched all over the internet for problems with this type of hose, and it seems like I'm the only one getting leaks at the hose ends like this. Here's what the hose on the gas tank looked like when I took the hose end off and peeled back the braid. This hose wasn't on the car more than about 2 years. This wasn't just a drip, this was fuel pouring out.

IMG_3396.jpeg

Should be using PTFE hose which is what they use on modern cars which is supposed to last the life of the car.

That's what I should have done from the beginning, especially since I had a roll of PTFE hose that I used for PS lines that I could have used. I don't know why I didn't. One problem with PTFE hose is that it can kink and has a larger bend radius, but that wasn't an issue with my car. As I said, that's what I plan to do if I can find appropriate hose ends.

[Rick_L]

What brand is your PTFE hose? Fragola makes/sells appropriate fittings for Parker PTFE and equivalent, available at Summit and the like.

[chevynut]

What brand is your PTFE hose? Fragola makes/sells appropriate fittings for Parker PTFE and equivalent, available at Summit and the like.

I have no idea what brand it is, but it's either Aeroquip, Russell, or Earl's. I may have bought it from Speedway since my receipts show I bought some -6AN high pressure hose ends there. The PTFE hoses all have about the same dimensions, and Earl's says their ID is .298-.330" and OD is .430-.464" which is quite a range. So their hose end fittings should work. I've used this hose for my PS lines with Aeroquip hose ends and they seem to fit fine. These hose and fitting suppliers should standardize their stuff so you can interchange without worrying about it. I'd buy "standard" hose and fittings before I bought anything else.

Fragola doesn't seem to make a 120 degree hose for PTFE that's natural, zinc or silver anodized. They have black only, which is kinda stupid imo....why wouldn't they offer the same hose end clear anodized? Earl's has steel and SS hose ends for PTFE hose at 120 degrees. I need 120 degree hose ends to clear my firewall as you can see in the pic. I probably would have been better off routing my fuel lines on the driver's side, but it was already crowded over there with brake lines and e-brake cables.

I wish the hose selection was as good back when I did this as it is today. I would have done everything in black if it was available back then. There was no high pressure black hose on the market except the generic rubber stuff.

[chevynut]

I just measured an Aeroquip fitting and a Russell fitting I have, both are for -6 PTFE hose. The dimensions of the tube that goes into the hose, and the "olive" are identical. I'm 99% sure my hose is Aeroquip and the hose end fits into the hose. The problem is neither suppliers offer a 120 degree hose end.

I guess I'll order the Earl's hose ends and hope they're the same size. I have a fortune in un-used fittings and hose ends now.

[Rick_L]

I suspect that the PTFE hoses are a whole lot more the same from brand to brand than other hoses. In fact there may not be but a couple of actual manufacturers. Trouble is that making assumptions is not all that wise unless you really need to.

[chevynut]

I removed the hoses and tested them under air pressure The fuel supply hose leaks and the return hose doesn't, same as in the rear.

IMG_5050.jpeg

I peeled the outer braid off.....

IMG_5055.jpeg


Then the inner braid.....

IMG_5056.jpeg

IMG_5057.jpeg

This is the EXACT SAME failure I saw in the rear of the car, as you can see in the picture above. I'm getting rid of all of this garbage and going teflon everywhere. I should have done that in the rear too. Summit still sells this same hose, which I plan to leave feedback on. What's puzzling to me is that I searched the internet for anyone else having this problem and can't find anything.

[chevynut]

Ironically, the DAY BEFORE this leak happened my brother asked me if I was going to change the front fuel lines. I told him that the return line in the rear was fine, so maybe I did something wrong assembling the pressure hose and I wasn't sure I wanted to replace them.

Also, ironically I started out with hard lines in the rear. Then I changed them to flex lines before I dropped the body onto the chassis, because I realized it would be a pain in the ass to pull the pump.

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IMG_2497.JPG

Then I changed them to another flex line when the pressure side sprung the leak. I think I used Earl's hose when I replaced them. I wonder what Earl's would say about this?

[chevynut]

Got the hose ends for the teflon braided hose ordered today. I'm done with that CPE crap.

I also have been working on the A/C hardlines to the condenser. I was going to have Tubes'nHoses in Loveland make them up for me. I went down and took a couple drawings of the condenser lines and one of my PCV tube. They told me they couldn't make stainless condenser lines with o-ring ends. So I said aluminum would probably work if that's all they could make. Then they told me they couldn't make 3/8" aluminum condenser lines with o-ring ends and would have to use 5/16", flare the ends, then make the o-ring bead. I told them I didn't want that. So I asked them to just bend some stainless tubing, and I would weld on the ends that I machined years ago. Then they told me they didn't have any 1/2" stainless tubing. So I said I'd get some and bring it in for them to bend. I got the tubing and went ahead and made the 3/8" condenser line myself, but I couldn't make the 1/2" line because my bender only does 1 1/2" radius bends.....they can do 1". I can't make it fit with the larger radius.

Here's the 3/8" line I made....still have to weld it.

IMG_5040.jpeg

I went down today to get the 1/2" lines they bent for me. They were having trouble understanding how I wanted the PCV tube bent and asked if it was one or two tubes. Here's the drawing I dropped off.....I thought it was pretty clear but the guy didn't understand it was two views of the same tube.

IMG_5062.jpeg

Anyhow, the condenser tube was kinda close to what I wanted, but it had nicks all over it. They put it in a vise without jaw protectors and dented the crap out of it. I had to explain to the guy how to bend the PCV tube, and I put the mark where he needed to bend it. Brought both tubes home to see if I could make them work.

Then I pulled out my blown out fuel hose and asked them if they had ever seen anything like that. They told me they never use hose like that, and always use Teflon hose for fuel. I asked why every manufacturer and distributor sells it as fuel hose and says it's okay to use with gas and ethanol, and they didn't know why. Then they proceeded to tell me that they use that hose for A/C lines. I told them it wasn't A/C hose and it needed to be barrier hose. Got tired of arguing about it so I left.

[BamaNomad]

And.. it gets worse and worse every year, Lazslo... We feel for ya!