I thought some of you would be interested in seeing these photos. To set the stage for this, the fuel line pictured is not quite 2 years old. In 2012 I replaced the fuel tank in my boat(81 20' Robalo CC). At that time, I replaced every hose, fitting and clamp in the fuel system, from the fill to the motor. No sense not doing that when you have the deck up, and I wanted to start with a clean slate after all of that work. Yesterday, while finishing up with spring preparations, and after replacing the element in the Racor filter, I decided to pump the ball some so that when the marina people put the boat in the water there would be fuel in the line and filter and they wouldn't have to pump the ball for 10 minutes to get the boat started. I noticed that after I squeezed, it was not popping back out like it should, which should be within a couple of seconds. So I checked the end into the motor and it was pumping it out fine, and decided I should go ahead and check the end that comes off of the Racor. Hmmmm. I pry it loose and look into the hose and here is what I see. It looks like a piece of plastic stuck in the hose. How could that get through the filter? Well, it couldn't, it was a piece of plastic, and it was the inner liner of the fuel line, which is a Moeller and good quality. The other thing is, the barbed fitting was a little larger than it should have been, and I remember this when putting this on just about 2 years ago because it was hard to get on. So what I surmised had happened was, the larger diameter barb had over stressed the fuel line construction when I put it on. Over the last 2 seasons the fuel ate into the separation of the layers of the hose, and eventually I ended up with what you see. I guess this could have happened over the winter, but my guess is that it was like this when it was put up. And by the way, the boat was running fine at that time and it did all last year. But sooner or later, and probably sooner, this was going to cause me a major problem, like when I was transiting Barnegat Inlet in a 4' chop. I am glad that I have gotten into the habit of checking little things out in the spring. So I have now learned two lessons:
Never use and oversized barb fitting, even if you can make it work
Check your fuel lines any way you can at least every year
View attachment fuel line end.jpg
I then looked at the other end of the piece involved that I had cut. You can kind of see where it is separating on this end(this is the end that faces the motor)
View attachment fuel line other end.jpg
I wish I had a picture of the good section, because you can not even notice the inner liner to this hose in that. Here is what it looks like split apart.
View attachment fuel line split.jpg
I don't know where the fine grit comes from, I found some pasty stuff in the bowl of the Racor filter when I changed the element, but when I called the marina and described what I had found and what still needed to be done (put a new fitting on before putting the boat in), they told me that this is common and they never saw it before ethanol was introduced into our fuel.
Never use and oversized barb fitting, even if you can make it work
Check your fuel lines any way you can at least every year
View attachment fuel line end.jpg
I then looked at the other end of the piece involved that I had cut. You can kind of see where it is separating on this end(this is the end that faces the motor)
View attachment fuel line other end.jpg
I wish I had a picture of the good section, because you can not even notice the inner liner to this hose in that. Here is what it looks like split apart.
View attachment fuel line split.jpg
I don't know where the fine grit comes from, I found some pasty stuff in the bowl of the Racor filter when I changed the element, but when I called the marina and described what I had found and what still needed to be done (put a new fitting on before putting the boat in), they told me that this is common and they never saw it before ethanol was introduced into our fuel.
