Sealing Fuel Line Intake - Leaf Blower

Okay, I think we've generated just about as much creative juice that is necessary on this issue - especially given the fact that I only shelled out just $25 for this leaf blower in the first place.

All right, since the weather in Maryland mostly attempted to cooperate with temperatures hovering just around freezing, I took an aggregate cross-section of the suggested solutions and worked through a fix that I think will carry the day, once and for all.

I looked through my collective "stuff" and actually found an inlet part that I thought I could adapt to the existing fuel line that I have. First, it may be important to note that this line to the fuel tank we've been discussing is actually a fuel return line, that runs from the primer bulb and returns excess fuel from the priming process, back through from the carburetor. Since there was so much good feedback and suggestions resulting from this posting, I've actually gone to the trouble of shooting some pretty sad digital photos of the actual fuel tank and the fuel line inlet and the fuel overflow return line.





It was the upper inlet that was the gasoline leak source, and you can see that I wrapped some Teflon tape around the one end to increase the diameter (that same recurring problem darn it all). Fortunately enough lateral force has the inlet part really securely sealed in the fuel tank hole. A couple of "tests" showed that the fix seems to be working, without any resulting leaks. Admittedly, this was a zero cost repair and didn't utilize the suggested sealant approach or the "screwed" fix or some of the other suggestions, but it did incorporate a hybrid of some of the suggested fixes. I guess only time (and vibration) will tell whether the fix will hold, but after a five minute test run, nary of drop of gasoline leaked. It's a little sad that now that the "fix" is in, now I have to wait until next year to really give the unit the acid test.

Thanks to everyone for their suggested solutions!

Thats the information that was missing. Its gravity fed. Doesn't really need a good seal just a tight fit to stop fuel slopping out.

Anyway, a good job by the looks.

Teflon and duct tape are essential parts of a real mans tool kit.

I would argue that the complex expensive and fancy packaging would be the place for this presupposed .01 / unit costs savings to be aptly applied and not in a poorly thought out feature that may bring poor reliability and safety issues with so little potential savings.

The US auto industry has followed this trend for some time, to their deficit as compared to the Japanese, given that if US trucks were not such a big sales success, the US auto industry would be up the poop-shoot without a roll of toilet paper.

And as for on board video / audio on modern motherboards two things at-the-least come to mind:

1) The cost differences to add video / audio is rather low so it makes a great selling feature and marketing feature more than it makes a cost savings argument against separate higher spec cards

2) Many people (perhaps most?) still buy separate audio and video cards for a number of reasons. The mobo introduces audio artifacts and has poorer ADA's than the separate card, Separate video cards provide similar arguments in terms of better res for gaming etc

I suggest that if what you say is true about the actual savings per unit on the weed whackers in question being one penny each, that it's a false economy as compared to the alternatives, and as discussed the US auto industry is a prime example

Also I am not in any way convinced that "the market asked for it" in terms of the lowest cost to the extent that you imply.

Why?

Because if true people would be driven by cost considerations alone and this is hardly the case! Witness BMW and Porsche; and before you go telling me that you cannot market a week whacker under the premise of reliability and build and safety worthiness again look to the Japanese autos for your answer.

That is not to say there is not a place for the lowest cost supplier, but again I would argue not in this case, not when it comes to gasoline / ignition sources / safety.

That is why (in part) we have the CSA / UL and related agencies. That is why, as you may have noticed, we have the the big recall on kid's toys with lead paint.

I say that style of fuel feed is damn crazy and cannot be adequately rationalized.

Your claim that "Lower prices... the market asked for it, they got it, and now we all have to live with the compromises" is specious. Your logic of blaming the market and not the manufacturer is false.

Chumly,

Not wanting to start a riot BUT...

The market demanded cheaper computers and now we have cheap computers that have compatibility problems, come with little or no support, shorter warranties... and adding a real video card is not as easy as you think in many circumstances. Most of the bread and butter computers (Dell, HP,Compaq) don't have a slot or an IRQ free to put anything else in and their bios' preclude disabling some built-in peripherals to free system resources up.

Not being a WalMart fan but, their business model is based on offering anything they sell cheaper than the competition. They seem to make a sale or two.

Lastly, I know more Porsche and Beemer drivers that own junk tools and stuff than I do Toyota or Honda owners that do. Might be because they have to make BIG car payments and can't spend what they'd like on quality tools and stuff... but I doubt that.

JMO YMMV

Whoa there! The market did not demand cheaper computers, economies of scale and Moore's Law has provided more powerful computers, which by default for similar or better capacity were cheaper. Sorry that's not the same thing at all.Whoa there. I have been buying, building, using PC's since the DOS 5 and 386 era and I can tell you with certainty that compatibility problems and support considerations are vastly better now than way-back.

As far as your claim that "adding a real video card is not as easy as you think in many circumstances" you're got to be kidding me! Win XP / plug & play make it a breeze compared to the DOS / 386 era.Whoa there newt. Who said anything about buying a name brand PC? Who said bread and butter computers are Dell, HP, Compaq?

I for one never would buy Dell, HP, Compaq. The question: is what you say true that they have no free slots, no free IRQ, and problematic proprietary BIOS management? Well you are going to have to prove to me on brand-new, just-out-of-the-box, mid-priced PC's by Dell, HP, Compaq before I'm convinced you are correct.

But in any case, there are so many local shops that can put together whatever you want for cheap using ASUS, Intel etc that there is no point in getting name-brand proprietary PC's unless maybe you are talking about some laptops; but even there the market is very much moving to laptops as a generic non-proprietary commodity, just like PC's. Witness the success of ASUS and Acer laptops. Wal-Mart must still abide by the CSA / UL and a ton of other regulatory agencies and thus cannot as you claim adhere to the falsehood that one should blame the market and not the manufacturer.Sorry justalurker, that's just personal subjective musings not relevant to the point at hand. Fun I suppose, and on that note I'll add my own personal subjective musings not relevant to the point at hand: I do love playing around with small gas engines!

I had the same problem but got an idea after reading these comments. I reversed the fuel line. after being on the nipple at the other end, it was stretched enough to seal when pushed into the tank. In fact it was hard to push into the tank.

I had the same problem but got an idea after reading these comments. I reversed the fuel line. after being on the nipple at the other end, it was stretched enough to seal when pushed into the tank. In fact it was hard to push into the tank.

I had the same problem and I used flex seal and I still use my weed wackier and it's been 4 years and I'm still using it as well.

My Ryobi has the same system (no nipple & friction fit) & I'm having the same problem, a search for which brought me to this discussion. Have tried epoxy & JB & Permatex w/out success. Good luck, y'all. If I find the answer, I'll share.
Sgt. Mack