Fuel Leak!

[Joshgti91 4 1 Cars]

Hi all, i was under the pug today and noticed a monumental fuel leak!! I couldn't really work out where it was coming from, but the recess between the 2 rear footwells where the mid exhaust box is was soaked in unleaded! Dripping straight onto the exhaust... Not good.

Do the fuel pipes run through the floor then out again at the engine?

 

Please help, anyone know what the cause is?

[BlueBolt 156]

Fuel pipes come down through the body from beneath the rear bench, out around the area you are saying is covered, and through solid pipe to the engine bay.

I had a leak here before myself, it was the pump to solid pipe stretch of rubber pipe that had it old (22yrs old) and the seal had just gone. Replaced it with some I bought off someone on here, and she's good as good now. You'll see the two solid pipes come along the centre of the car parallel to the exhaust when you hack her up and take a look.

 

Hope this helps??

[allye 530 3 Cars]

like so, except GTI's have solid lines under the car as Bluebolt says.

 

[Alan_M 66 1 Cars]

Breather hose off the tank may of come adrift?

 

Happened to me in Germany, luckily Rob was following me and got me to pull over pronto!

[Tom Fenton 1,548]

Under the rear seat there are large plastic access covers so you can get to the top of the fuel tank, I would remove these for a look as a starting point. Most likely is that the rubber pressure line from the pump to the steel pipes under the car has perished and split, easy enough to repair with a short length of injection spec fuel rubber pipe and some clips.

[Joshgti91 4 1 Cars]

Thanks for your replies everyone.... I have used your picture Allye to show you exactly where it is coming from. The area in red is soaked in fuel. Are the pipes with green arrows fuel pipes? If, so could it be leaking from there?

 

 

Cheers.

[Alan_M 66 1 Cars]

Pipes with green arrows are your handbrake cables. The two thick pipes that go to the front of the car are your fuel pipes.

[Joshgti91 4 1 Cars]

Pipes with green arrows are your handbrake cables. The two thick pipes that go to the front of the car are your fuel pipes.

Oh yeah! Just seen they each go to a rear wheel...

 

Any ideas as to why fuel would be in that area then if the 2 fuel pipes do not go through it?

[Alan_M 66 1 Cars]

As I said in an earlier post, could well be the breather has come off your tank and allowing fuel to splosh out and dribble down. You can't see the breather easily as it's on top of the tank.

 

Looks like your fuel hoses have been replaced at some point (are those rubber?), and is usually when the breather gets knocked off the tank. Happened to me.

[pug_ham 245 3 Cars]

Alan, they aren't Josh's fuel pipes but allye's picture Josh has used to highlight where it was wet with fuel.

 

Any ideas as to why fuel would be in that area then if the 2 fuel pipes do not go through it?

 

The standard flexi pipes from the tank join onto the rigid metal pipes around there & I have known of the metal pipes to rust through, even a pin head sized hole will spray a good amount of fuel out.

 

I you run the pump without the engine running to pressurise the system, you can have a better look for the leak without the fear of spraying fuel onto a hot exhaust.

 

This can be done with a length of wire from the lighter socket plug to the fuel pump plug under the rear seat or from the centre pin for one of the relays in the fusebox into the upper side of the fuel pump fuse pin (fuse removed).

 

g

[Joshgti91 4 1 Cars]

Thanks everyone! I'm gonna get chance to have a roper look at it this weekend. And by using all your advice, I'm sure I'l get to the bottom of it. I'l keep you posted.

[Joshgti91 4 1 Cars]

like so, except GTI's have solid lines under the car as Bluebolt says.

 

 

 

like so, except GTI's have solid lines under the car as Bluebolt says.

 

Had a chance to look under the car, and after a quick brush over the solid fuel pipes, found where it was leaking from, a corroded pipe! Allye, what fuel pipe did you use on your car in this pic? looks really tidy and would like to have something similar if i can get the pipe.

Cheers.

[j_turnell 137 3 Cars]

You can buy new fuel pipe from pug for under £20 iirc, it comes in one piece but enough for both lines. If one line is leaking then the other must be heavily corroded also, so worth replacing both. Just use your old lines as a template to shape the new ones.

[pug_ham 245 3 Cars]

Any decent motor factor should stock the correct spec of fuel hose but it has to be of the correct rating & will probably cost more than the metal pipes from Pug.

 

Personally, after a bad experience using fuel hose from ebay, I'd only buy it from somewhere I trust.

 

g