
Re: 1981 Dyane 6 'Le Hellbilly'
Ooops...
The torrential rain cleared this afternoon, SWMBO went up to the inlaws who live a mile away, and after catching up on some important internet business (
www.bootywobblers.com or something,hur hur hur) I sallied forth to join her.
As I drove up towards theirs I thought it felt a bit hesitant but just put it down to being cold, and thought no more of it.
After shooting the breeze and partaking in tea/cakes for an hour I came out to come home and noticed a pool of something under the front. Oh bollocks. Oil (well at least thats what I thought it was) all over my in-laws block-paved drive. Not good. I shifted the car off the drive and after giving Pa-in-Law a hand to clear the mess up and ascertaining that there was plenty of oil in the sump I drove home v-e-r-y slowly.
So I got home, backed onto the drive and whacked a huge sheet of cardboard under the engine, then bent up another one to sit above the chassis rail under the left-hand cylinder head to see if I could ascertain where the oil was coming from (the NS chassis leg was covered, so it was hard to tell just by looking at that).
Strangely, there was none. Thinking back to how fragile the oil-feed pipes are that run up from the crankcase to the cylinder heads I started to panic. I phoned Spanners who said "Don't drive it, I'll be there in 30 minutes".
While I was waiting and looking underneath I traced a drip back not to the chassis, but to the fuel line that's clipped underneath it. Could it be possible that it was petrol, not oil? Certainly it smelled like good ol' BP Unleaded....but it was only a tiny drip. Cue me feeling like a bellend. (not hard...I am one). Phoned Jon again. "Ahhhhh....I'll bring some fuel line".
JC arrived with a huge roll of fuel pipe. We started it up again, and with me on the throttle the drip turned into an absolute torrent of Unleaded.. Switch off, jury-rig some fresh line on to catch the fuel, whip the length of pipe off.....

There be the problem. As the fuel pump demanded more fuel up from the tank, it was pissing out of that tiny split, all along the chassis rail, washing off the remnants of the oil we'd spilled on it yesterday. That was also causing the hesitancy I'd felt whilst driving up the hill to the inlaws.
Further examination of the pipe revealed:

Date of Manufacture: May 1981
No wonder. It's now got nice new neoprene fuel line, and all-new Jubilee clips.
Anyway, panic over, thanks again to Spanners and his good nature, and apologies to my inlaws.... ;D