I've had a warm/hot start issue with my car for a while now and I took the good Doc's advice and checked out the accumulator which in fact proved to be defective.

Priced a new one from my nearest dealer and he quoted me the astronomical sum of AUD504.00 which equates to USD432.00!

After picking myself up off the floor,I tracked one down on eBay for USD92.00 plus USD22.00 S&H to Australia.

Mail delivery from the U.S. to here is not exactly at the speed of light and anything up to ten days can be expected.

In the meantime I disconnected and capped off the accumulator outlet and return line and it would seem the system is maintaining pressure.

I have not driven the car since doing this, as I wanted to first check with you people as to whether it would be OK to do so as a temporary measure.

you should be ok but i hope yer capping off job is a good one as we wouldn't want you to have gas all over yer car and have it catch fire. best would be to reattach the hose and just clamp off the hose.

george

Thanks for your reply mbshop.

As I crudely understand the fuel system, the pressure to the fuel distributor is around 80 to 90 psi.

If the fuel accumulator is leaking, then it seems to me the fuel that escapes is only returning to the fuel line which is not pressurised.

So therefore, if the accumulator outlet is firmly sealed, I see no cause for alarm, given your reply.

However, I do stand corrected if my theory is in fact wrong, but I do possess a reasonable understanding of liquid pressures in another field.