BN1 carburetor fuel line

On my car the fuel line connecting the forward carburetor to the rear carburetor is a rubber hose that is hose-clamped to the banjo fittings on each carburetor. I've seen other Healeys with a lovely copper line running from banjo fitting to banjo fitting. The Moss catalog indicates that the hard line should be brazed to the banjo fittings.

The question I have is this: how hard is it to do that brazing? I've worked on copper pipes (domestic water supply) in the house with great success. But before I start messing with the banjo fittings and propane torches I figured I would ask on the Forum if anyone has advice about how to proceed. This project is primarily an aesthetic one but it is something I have been pondering for a while. (Obviously, I will do any torching far far away from combustibles...)

I'm talking about #62, 63, & 64 in the diagram.


Thanks,

-Jonathan

The propane torch that most people use for soldering copper won't generate enough heat for brazing. Brazing is usually done with an oxy-acetylene torch. For that, one needs the oxy-acetylene equipment, and experience helps a lot too. Otherwise, one can easily make a mess. You might want to take the pieces to a welder.

I would think you could solder the copper pieces like plumbers do. The fuel pressure is only about 3 psi and house water pressure is about 30 psi. I think the fuel pipes may have been silver soldered originaly, thats how Porsche fuel pipes are done.

Oh boy...on the one hand I've got the siren song of Do It Yourself, on the other I've got that old friend One Can Easily Make a Mess.

Maybe you can borrow one of your wife's silver rings or piece of jewelry when she isn't looking and give it the old collage try?

moremonkey said:

Oh boy...on the one hand I've got the siren song of Do It Yourself, on the other I've got that old friend One Can Easily Make a Mess.

Click to expand...

Well, I could easily be wrong about this. One often does solder brass plumbing fittings to copper pipe, so that might work just fine. It seems that I have seen connections like this that are brazed. But if you have a tight fit between the tube/pipe and the banjo fitting and enough contact area between the two for solder to work well, you could give it a try. You might want to post a few pics of the banjo fittings; that would help obtain a more informed opinion.

By the way, copper tubing bends well and easily by hand; copper pipe can be next to impossible to bend without kinking the pipe.

Hi Jonathan
I have make this operation with my old mechanic, He used the torch but used also a metallic stick- in Italian called ARGENTONE
that I buy from the local Hardware store -this helped a lot in the operation (I think was one chemical compound to reduce the cooper oxidation)

By the way, copper tubing bends well and easily by hand; copper pipe can be next to impossible to bend without kinking the pipe.[/QUOTE]


Solder the the end of the copper pipe, ram it FULL with DRY sand , solder and seal the top, and correctly annealed you can tie a knot into it and not kink it.

I've done this repair and made new lines up many times. You can use solder with a good flux, heating is done with a std propane torch, but the gas has to be Map Gas, in the yellow canister. Heat the brass up, push in the copper pipe with flux on it, then very soon after touch the copper with the solder. The hotter brass connection will draw in the solder.

Caution, if you put too much solder on it will be drawn into the bore of the copper pipe and you have to reheat, disassemble and start all over again.

Busybrit that's helpful information. Thanks.

I'm going to give it a shot with MAP gas once I work my way through the rest of my winter projects.