TIIMuch

iTrader: (20)

So I drive my recently running Z28 over to the Grrlfrens last night and after I'm there for a minute she sez,"Damn,....you smell like gas?!"

I say "No,no,just don't have the console all the way installed, prolly just some fumes coming up from the transmission tunnel?!"

The next day I'm doing the 30 mile trip to my frens Driveline shop to have the noisy diff checked out and I smell gas fumes so I crank up the vent system and keep going,...weird, the fuel gauge has dropped like a rock over the past 50 miles or so,...(*maybe this new 383 is running in open loop?!*),...I pull into my freinds shop and he points out the trail of fuel I've left backing in(?!)

I could'nt find a leak in the engine compartment.

Having cut a fuel pump access door to check out the tank innards in this long sitting car I flip over the carpeting and see the top of the fuel tank COVERED in raw fuel and more leaking out of the large fuel line quick connect.
I look under the car and gas is pouring out just in front of the muffler over the
sheet metal heat baffle/shield between the muffler and the tank.

Holy crap?!

That's half a tank of premium I'll never enjoy?!

Here's what I want to share,...the "guts" of the quick connects go together like this.

-Brown colored O ring goes in first, lube it up, square it up and gently seat it down in the connector on the last "step".

-the white plastic spacer goes in next(it has a square X section)

-the Yellow colored O ring goes in next

- the Black plastic tapered fitting goes in smaller side "in" and if you press gently with a 3/8" drive extension drive end you will feel it snap into place locking all the parts together in the fitting.

In wrestling with the fittings in the tight confines I must have pulled the black
fitting out of the quick connect,....when I flipped the carpet over this morning I very luckily found it lying on the steel deck next to the cut out. ("WTF is this?!", smart like, I had saved it.

The O rings had backed out over the last week or so without the black fitting to hold the quick connect guts together and the leak started/progressed.

I was lucky the whole car had'nt burnt to the ground on the side of the highway, and with the cut out lid not yet fabricated it could have been IN the pass compartment sooner than later.

FYI and reading enjoyment.

sweetbmxrider

iTrader: (13)

This is why you check for leaks after doing work.

TIIMuch

iTrader: (20)

It did'nt leak after the work,...the leak started a week after starting to drive the car,...the fitting worked it's way loose in that time.

My post was made to help someone else who finds the quick connect fittings have come apart and need/want to put them together again,....
I was confronted by the two O rings,the white plastic spacer ring and the black locking/retaining ring with no idea how they all fit,...in a critical application. I could not find a diagram of the fitting components online and ended up taking the return line fitting AND the other end of the main supply line fitting apart to check out how they were assembled,...they where like I wrote.

sweetbmxrider

iTrader: (13)

I got ya, the quick connects can be a little difficult if you aren't used to them. I usually take a look at the orings before connecting.