Today with the tolerable weather conditions I installed the new hose. This stuff:

An 10 10AN 9 16" 14mm Braided Stainless Steel Fuel Hose Oil Line 1ft | eBay

Taped it off and cut with thin grinder blade, easy peeezy. Looked like a lunar surface covered with welding spatter inside after that, with quite the melt burr ridge also. Stanley knife and drag a rag - shiny as an oil slick.

Those 30 YO original SS clamps still looked new, MB part numbers and all.

I was prepared - but less than a cc of fuel leaked out. I suppose sitting all winter let the pressure off. Not much was in the tank anyway, and I had jacked up the pass side so the tank outlet was probably not flooded.

Good luck trying this with a full tank and the pressure not bled off

Unless someone can confirm that this shouldn't drain all over you anyway?