The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Fuel leaks - Rodchester B

Hi Matt,
First of all, anyone tossing up scare talk about rubber fuel line isn't using it for a 1963 truck with a 230 six. In that application the only way you can get fuel fumes is if you do a bad job and have fuel spraying or leaking/dripping from some connection or if your carburetor is leaking gas. The people complaining about rubber line are people who (a) know nothing about fuel injection systems and (b) are trying to use this low pressure line for an application for which it is dangerously unfit...in fact it is stamped all over that line "not for use in fuel injection systems---50 psi max." If you put this in a high pressure fuel injection application, it will fail (and leak) every single time. It may take a couple of weeks, but you will have fumes. You'll have fumes just before the whole car ignites. Please...don't spend even 5 seconds worrying about rubber/nitrile fuel line with your truck. If you want to use it, go right ahead but just be certain to buy Gates (made in the USA) line.

In the 70s I had one of these Rochesters which had been buggered up so badly by a prior owner I had to use epoxy (JB Weld) to permanently mount a piece of copper tubing where it goes in the carb to finally make it stop leaking. I still have that carburetor, and after over 40 years it doesn't leak. Originally this was a flared fitting. Heaven knows what has been done since then, however. Studying 10 carburetors this summer / early fall, I saw some things that defied common sense.

This summer I posted a lot about the Rochester carbs. Unless they've been straightened it is highly likely they are going to leak. I know rebuilding shops (and other people) think the answer is to just use 2 gaskets between the air horn and float bowl, but I do not believe that is a good plan. Look at one which would nearly cause the engine to die every time it went around a corner (attached). One of the 2 gaskets they used had shrunk and deformed and any time gas sloshed up there it poured right into the throat. These are notorious for leaking around the outer seam where the air horn meets the float bowl. Good luck!