Project Boondoggle (or, so I went and bought a Z!)

[S30Driver]

1 hour ago, Captain Obvious said:

You didn't use regular fuel line hose to splice in your gauge, did you? You used the fuel injected variety, right? Rated for the higher pressures?

I too was curious if he used FI rated line.  Rated for over 200psi vs about 50 for the carb line.

Purchased some Gates FI line at NAPA 3 or 4 years ago, was surprised when the counter guy handed me the cheap gear clamps to go with the line.  Had to explain to him the difference between the FI clamps & the cheap ones.   He thanked me.

[charliekwin]

Yeah...lower pressure (R7) before the fuel pump, R9 after.  New hose on the way so I can replace it all.

[Zed Head]

Interesting story.  Is there some reason you can't give us some details?  It was only two years ago.  The writing is surely still visible on the hose.  You didn't really say what the rating was of the hose that split.

It's like you told us you saw a monster but don't want to tell us what it looked like or how big it was or where you saw it.  An engine fire is a pretty scary monster.

 

 I trusted that the PO or maybe the PO before the PO had used correct hose on my car.  Before my engine leak, I had a UPS driver flag me down and tell that there was "a lot of some sort of liquid leaking" from the back of my car.  One of the PO's had used fuel vent line from the pump to the metal line.  Split right open.  Luckily I was within jogging distance of my house.

[Zed Head]

Tell us a scary story...

[charliekwin]

Sorry if it wasn't clear, SAE 30R9 (fuel injection hose) is the stuff I put in that split.  SAE 30R7 is the lower pressure fuel line that I used from the fuel tank to supply the pump.

[Zed Head]

What brand?

Just trying to make sure that what happened to you doesn't happen to me, and the rest of us.  That's all.  Did you nick the hose by accident?  Push it over a sharp edge?  The inner fuel resistant coating is very thin and if it gets penetrated fuel will leak through it and soak the outer support material.  You could have the exact same thing happen again.

Edit - another way to look at it is - there must be a cause.  This is not a random event.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Zed Head

[charliekwin]

Whatever Napa sells, but I'm not home to look.  And, yes, that's very much a possibility.  Not blaming the kiddo here, but he's poked at (and through) things before, and even though I keep an eye on what he's doing when he's in the garage with me, he definitely could have hit the hose with something, which is probably more likely than a defective hose.

[Captain Obvious]

Well you used the right stuff.

Maybe kiddo nicked it? Maybe they opened the box with a razor knife at NAPA? Maybe just a bad day for you?

In any event, glad that it didn't become something serious, and let's hope it was a one time anomaly!

[charliekwin]

Today was the big day: flocking day!

It went ...sub-optimally.  Step 1 is to apply the undercoat/adhesive.  This stuff is supposedly sprayable, but even with a big tip, nothing much would come out.  The spec sheet says to thin with mineral spirits, but those aren't available in SoCal anymore, and after putting the gun down for just a couple minutes, it was starting to clog up.  Called an audible and used brushes instead, which is where things went sideways.

I watched some Youtube videos and one thing that kept coming up was that you need to work fast. So I recruited my wife and we laid the stuff down as quickly as possible, and also put it on thick.  Too thick.  The top of the dash in particular ended up getting some nasty-looking runs in it.  I have to wait until tomorrow to knock off the excess, but I'm 90% certain that all the flock I just put on will have to be stripped off and reapplied.  Bummer.

The good:

• I bought plenty of extra materials.  And it's cheap.
• The compressed air applicator was super effective, and I saved like $60 by just making my own instead of buying it.
• The parts where the flocking was done well ended up looking quite nice.  The camera makes it look kind of sparkly, but it's much closer to flat black.  It's better than I thought it would be.  Not sure about the feel/texture since I can't touch it yet.

The bad:

• I kinda screwed it up.  It's not hard to apply, but I should have practiced on a small piece first.  If you want to flock something, do a test run.
• Doing a job again sucks.  Not a good way of doing your test run.

[grannyknot]

I don't think it looks bad at all, looks good, very unique. Is the flocking black felt? That's what it looks like, kind of like a speaker cabinet.

[charliekwin]

The flocking is nylon fibers.  It's supposed to have a suede texture. It looks a lot like suede, but I can't touch it for 24 hours until the glue dries.

Happy with the look so far, just not happy with the application I did.  It's tough to photograph the runs, but you can see the worst of it in the 3rd picture on the left side at the bottom of the dash.  I might still end up looking okay or good enough for me to leave it, but I'm not optimistic.  I spent a lot of time and effort trying to get the dash as close to perfect as I could manage, so if I have to spend an extra day stripping and re-flocking, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

[charliekwin]

Blew off the excess flock to see how it came out, and it needs a do-over, for sure.  The glue that ran down isn't quite as noticeable as I thought it might be, but I ended up with some thin and bald spots that I can't live with.