Joining plastic fuel lines

[keithyboy]

Tried to change the fuel filter on my Saab 900 last night and had a nightmare. Cutting to the chase, I managed to put a kink in the plastic fuel line which split when I tried to straighten it. The fitting is a barbed banjo fitting which the plastic line was pushed onto (presumably after heating the pipe at the factory). I can't refit the banjo into the line, partly because I can't get the plastic warm enough to be flexible and partly because it's too short now anyway. Options:

1. I can get a whole new line put on my ends but this means removing the whole pipe and I can't get to the hose place until next week.

2. Other suggestions offered to me are to use a few inches of rubber fuel pipe and use a jubilee clip on the banjo fitting and slide the plastic line in the other end with a couple of jubilee clips around the rubber to clamp it. This option is quite appealing because I have the stuff lying around to do it but makes me slightly nervous at the same time.

3. A Saab specialist says he can supply a banjo with a short piece of plastic hose attached and a fitting to join to the existing pipe but wants £30 + p&p for it.

Should I do without the car for a few days and go with 1, go quick and dirty with 2, stop being tight and go with 3, or do something else?

[welshpug]

I would do -

number 2: if you need it moving asap, leave the plastic on the barbed fitting as its usually 8mm o.d, where normal braided rubber pipe is 5/16" i.d (8mm or so) and clamp it up nicely with fuep hose clips, not jubilees.

then number 4.

find a helpful haulage workshop, as trucks all use plastic hose like this, they will usually have rolls of this stuff and the tool to fit the union into the pipe.

you don't heat the pipe, just clamp it with what essentially is a set of vice grips, with appropriately shaped jaws, and push the barbed fittings in.