Tygon for Return Fuel Lines(Success!)---W123

[iladelf]

Had a fuel leak at the very back injector (nearest the firewall) on my '81 300D with '84 turbo engine, and after reading here and watching Youtube vids, figured the likely cause was a bad return fuel hose. The ones on it are the cloth-covered "Made In Germany" ones I've seen in other photos here on the forum and elsewhere, but I decided to see if I could get a quick fix locally by finding...some yellow Tygon that would fit. Here's what I've found:

1. The size that I bought was .117 inches ID, .211 inches OD. I only bought a foot of it to see if it would work.

2. Yanked off the offending leaking return hose; that was fairly easy. However, after measuring and cutting the Tygon to the same size as the original, I found that pushing the Tygon on was well, tight. I wasn't getting along very well by doing it by hand, so I tried rubber gloves (that didn't help; believe the seeping leftover fuel was the culprit), then a paper towel between my fingers and the Tygon. That did the trick, as I was able to bottom out the Tygon on both barbs.

3. Started the car and everything ran normally. Only weird thing I noticed was that the Tygon, due to it being more flexible, "shakes" with the car---you can clearly see it vibrating (the cloth ones do not). Don't think that will be any concern until the Tygon gets some age on it (2-3 years?) and causes it to crack around the barbs. So what, I say; from what I've read, these hoses should be replaced in that time frame anyway. After a day, I noticed the barbs and injector were bone dry, so my fix worked. Since the others aren't leaking, I'll leave them for now, but have bought another 3ft to do those when necessary.

Online, I discovered that .117 inches is just a shade smaller than the 1/8 inch I've seen mentioned elsewhere. It appears this .117 inch stuff is smaller than 1/8 inch, but larger than the 1.9 mm ID of the original.

I would put a link on here where I got it, but since this is Pelican's forum, I'm guessing they'd rather not have me posting links from competing auto parts stores. If anyone knows if it's ok to, I will post it in the future. Or you can PM me if that is allowed.