Has anyone had issues with Russell fittings lately? I am building a 72 C10 right now and used Russell adapter fittings to convert the Saginaw rack's 16 and 18 mm o-ring connections to 6AN. The high pressure fitting leaked like the o-ring was missing, so I pulled it apart and the o-ring was intact, so I replaced the o-ring and put it back together again. After starting back up, it proceeded to dump another quart of fluid on the floor! After pulling it back apart again and seeing nothing wrong, I started measuring the fittings and the rack that it screwed into. I found that the adapter was bottoming out against the rack on the hex of the adapter before the adapter was compressing the o-ring. It was the same on both the high and low pressure fitting, but the high was the only one leaking because of the high pressure. I had already pissed away a couple of days on this issue, including trying to contact Russell (which was an effort in futility), so I just went on Amazon and bought 3 different fitting sets that were available to ship today. I figured that if all 3 sets were the same as the Russell fittings, I could just send them back. Well, the fittings showed up and all 3 sets were 1/16 to 1/8 inch longer from bottom of the hex to the seat of the o-ring! Keep in mind that all 3 sets were cheap, offshore made adapters, as the name brand stuff like Earls and like were several days out before delivery. Put one on the offshore adapter sets in and the when torqued up, there was a good gap between the hex and the rack body like there should be. The cheap adapter properly compressed the o-ring and Russell did not. Filled it back up and the system is dry as a bone with no leaks! For almost 40 years, Russell has been my go-to supplier for all performance plumbing, but because of poor customer service and even worse quality control, I am rethinking my position. I was always willing to pay a premium for top quality and good service, but with the new ownership of the company, I just don't think that they are as good as they used to be. I have been building cars for over 50 years, and I have never seen customer service as bad as it is today. The notable exception is Summit Racing as they have never failed to resolve an issue quickly and properly. I actually bought these fittings from Summit, but just did not feel right bitching at them about the quality since it was outside of their control. I am sure that they would have refunded the sale, but I bought these fittings over 7 months ago just to have in stock on the shelf and did not feel right about trying to get a refund on them.


Regards, John McGraw

 

Unfortunately, that's the way it is now

QC costs money so companies skimp
Customer support costs money, so there's a gap in coverage
It's also possible you got a covid leftover where companies bought up and repackaged low quality imports because their normal mfr was shut down

I run a shop and have atleast one faulty part per order these days, most are name brands. It's really frustrating, esp when more and more companies are bought up by investment groups filled with bean counters

 

I have used Russell for years with zero issues. Didn't know it had been sold.
I assume you are using -6 PTFE line for the pressure side?

 

Summit don't mind you returning defective parts. They have a 2 year return policy for just such issues.

 

I've always been a fan of Earl's power steering hose and fittings for the pressure side.

 

What part number(s) did you use that didn't fit correctly? Were they specifically intended to be used as adapters on a Saginaw PS rack? It could be that the rack uses ports that aren't "typical," so a typical adapter won't work right - I've seen that be the case with other PS racks and pumps.

 

John,

Sorry to hear about the trouble you ran into with the Russell fittings. We appreciate you sharing your experience.

We’ve sent you a PM to get more info so we can take a closer look.

 

We wanted to follow up in the thread after connecting with John through PM. Glad we were able to get this taken care of.

We also wanted to mention that Russell backs these with a 1-year warranty, so while we appreciate him not wanting to reach out after some time had passed, he was still well within that window.

We appreciate John being a long-time customer and bringing this to our attention.

 

Yes, it is 6AN and I am using PTFE hose. In any case, it was not leaking at the hose of the 6AN fitting. It was leaking at the connection between the adapter and the rack. The problem was clear and beyond dispute, the fitting bottomed on the rack at the hex fitting before it fully compressed the O-ring. Yes, it was a Saginaw rack,but clearly there can be some tolerance differences between racks and this one was deep enough that the fitting did not reach the bottom. All 3 of the other brand fitting sets that I ordered were at least .080 longer from the bottom of the hex to the O-ring seat and one set was .125" longer. the .080 was sufficient to make the fitting seal. The point is this, why would they not make the fitting a little longer so that it would reliably seal on all racks. I am quite sure that their fittings seal up on most racks or they would not be selling any of them. It hurts nothing to make the fittings a thread or two longer so that it will seal up on all racks, but it probably adds another 5 cents in material cost to make them this way. If you look at an OEM o-ring fitting on these racks, you will see at least 1 or 2 threads still sticking up out of the bore when they are fully tightened. That is what keyed me to measure the depth of the bore to begin with, when I saw the fitting was bottomed on the rack body, I was pretty sure that I had found the problem and was in fact the problem. The take-away it this, I will ever buy another one of these adapters again, since every other adapter that I measured was longer. Why would I take a chance that the higher priced fitting would not seal when the other fittings seal up perfectly? I too have been a Russell customer exclusively for many years, but now question this loyalty. I have always been willing to pay little extra for a quality product that works right, but if fitment is a crap shoot why not buy the product is half the price? There is an old saying in business "it cost very little to keep an existing customer, but once you lose them, it is almost impossible to get them back."
The poor fitment coupled with the non-existent customer service, pretty much tells me everything I need to know. Had they contacted me and shown even a modicum of concern for my problem, my feelings might be different, but by ignoring my problem, just tells me that they do not really care about me.

Regards, John McGraw

 

Joe, I appreciate you reaching out. Summit is the model of what customer service should look like! You guys have always done right by me for many years. Had Russell reached out to me and acknowledged the issue, my feelings toward their products would be much different. The fact that they did not even acknowledge the issue tells me that chances are, that If I were to buy this same fitting a year from now, it would be exactly the same and would stand a chance of not sealing up a a rack that had a slightly deep bore like the one I had. Since I know that there are many different brands that are long enough to seal up in a deeper bore, why on earth would I ever buy this adapter again? Thanks again

Regards, John McGraw