Thanks Paul B

It looks like it happened where the clamp was. The clamp probably started to cut through it over time.

you should direct your anger at the person that put too much torque into a cheap clam on cheap hose, or at least at the person that didn't see the signs of a hose starting to go bad and replace it before it let go...

the clamp was probably torqued down too tight, which caused the hose to split over time... seen it a lot- sometimes things just wear out and break without anyone conspiring against you..

Well, that appears to be a pretty old hose, and I have seen them fail like that if the hose clamp is near the edge of the hose barb. But, there does appear to be a cut mark near the break, failure due to the way it was clamped or due to being cut, could go either way. But since that doesn't look to be a new hose I'd just replace the line with new stuff, count my blessings nothing caught on fire and move on.

I will reply to all points tomorrow.

Thanks Paul

IT WAS CUT!!!

It looks old anyway so as all the others have said a bit of over torque, I'm just in the mood to see a good old ass kicking!!!

This is why I strongly prefer the fuel injection type clamp, you can get them a lot tighter without harming the hose.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: This is why I strongly prefer the fuel injection type clamp, you can get them a lot tighter without harming the hose.

but they cost more than 79 cents and they don't have them in a handy display on the counter at the local PepZone..

the hose in question looks like a lot of hoses i've seen that were either too short or just installed in such a way that they were being pulled to one side, which the installer tries to compensate for by going all Mongo on the clamp, which causes it to split.. sometimes it's due to someone in the past shortening the hose after it splits because they didn't have the $1.95 in their pocket to buy a foot of new hose..

Based on the way the reinforcing fibers are all broken at the same length, I think it was cut. I'm not a hose forensics expert though.

I hate to say it but that looks cut. But what to I know. Tough call the "cut" looks to be a bit away from there the hose clap line is and I see what appears to be a botched first attempt at the cut. So I would say there is a good possibility that it was cut but it is not conclusive.

do you have a candidate for the arse wooping, or are you just going to go around wooping everyone you come to, until someone confesses ?

That was not cut.

Normal wear and tear at the clamp, as others have noted.

Is the fuel hose soft and flexible? Or is it stiff from age and split when someone leaned of it while doing something else...? And the split was not found till later...

Broke for sure !

Looks like old dry fuel line that broke.

Does it flex like new line? I doubt it. I bet you could break it by flexing it an inch higher up the line.

There is no excuse for not using the proper fuel line clamps, and although it may be just because they want to sell more expensive fuel line, but the gates website says that only the high pressure fuel line (j30r9 spec) is sufficiently resistant to ethanol in fuel now so i only use that no matter what car it is.

wbjones wrote: do you have a candidate for the arse wooping, or are you just going to go around wooping everyone you come to, until someone confesses ?

Awesome idea

Well it looks like I have a hung jury, a number of people (not on this forum) believe the line was cut and some say “broke” and two are unsure, so the ass-kicking has been postponed.

The back ground of this issue hinges on the actions (and lack of action) from one person; this person has been accused of taking fuel from other people in the past, this person has the access, ability, and the need for fuel, I will not get into all the details on here about the need part. The mystery loss of fuel I think started last fall and went unnoticed (due to limited use) till spring, at the time I believed it was myself forgetting to fuel the bike up until I was looking over a bank statement and I noticed that I purchased almost the same amount of fuel every Sunday. With this bit of information I started to keep a log of mileage at the start of use, end of use, and when I filled up the bike; the numbers were amazing I was near 4MPG!!! This prompted a number of inspections to try and figure out where the hell all this fuel was going I checked the fuel line at least three times (old but flexible), the carb, the crank case oil level and for fuel contamination, compression test, leak down test, the tail pipe for raw fuel, and placed cardboard under the bike for a week all for nothing I could not find anything wrong. After this I started to think this person had something to do with the fuel coming up missing so I got rather E36 M3ty with him on night and threaten to put up CCTV and turn on the access alarm, after this the mystery fuel loss stopped dead in its tracks.

Fast forward three weeks to last Saturday, this person and I were at a family function; I was ready to leave when he said that he had “smelled gas” in the shop earlier in the week. Now every time the phrase “I smelled gas in the shop” has been used the I discovered the bike was almost out of fuel, well I make a bit of a joke about it in front of other people that have been through the “mystery loss of fuel” issue and everyone had a laugh. Sunday I head over to the shop and pull the bike out the first thing I check is the fuel level ( I filled the bike up with fuel six miles before parking it) and sure as E36 M3 not one drop can be seen from the filler, go to turn the fuel valve to reserve and discovered the valve is in the on position. Now I am know for a fact the fuel valve was turned off (tight to turn) when I parked the bike, flip the valve to reserve and fuel came out of the split in the fuel hose.

The facts are piling up now.

1) No way in hell this bike could have been ridded in this condition (pants were dry after parking the bike last week)

2) The fuel valve was in the on position

3) The fuel line was “split” on the bottom of the hose (easy to reach with a knife)

4) No fuel staining on the bike or the sealed concrete floor (loss of 2.38 U.S Gallons)

5) This happen after I made a bit of a “scene”

I believe this person has been removing fuel from both of my bikes since last fall, I thought I had the smoking gun but not this time, just a lighter wallet.

Thanks for your input and listing to me rant and rave a little.

Paul

I will never share shop space with anyone again!

In reply to Donebrokeit:

The next time he says "I smell gas" answer "it smells like blood to me" and head butt him right in the eye socket. He is stealing your gas.

Ah, definitely sounds more like cut then, if you had recently inspected it and it looked fine.

Cheap way to know for sure, get a new line and cover it with that fake braided steel line covering, should be able to find some at Advance-O-Zone for a few bucks. Can't hide a cut with that stuff, and I don't believe a clamp would damage it if it was torqued down too far. Might even serve as a deterrent. Or, get some real braided steel fuel line, for a short length it's not that much more. If that gets cut, commence to whoopin azz..

The reason I did not post any of the back ground information was that I wanted unbiased opinions based on just the pics.

Why does broke vs cut matter, if you have good reason to suspect that gas theft was involved either way? Forget the ass kicking. It sounds to me like the time has passed to simply cut your losses and distance yourself from this person as much as possible, as quickly as possible...Setting the access alarm would certainly be prudent, and quietly installing CCTV might not be a bad idea either.

Or do what my great granddad did when local kids were stealing gas from the big gravity feed tank on his farm(back when gasoline was that stable), fill the tank with water.

Mix up a batch of really really bad gas. I mean something that will destroy a motor. (I would have to do some research but I am thinking the stuff that the junk years used to kill the motors in the cash for clunker cars. And put it in your bikes gas tank. Not sure how to keep it in solution but that is why there is google. Put something in the inlet of the carb to prevent any of it getting in the carb on your bike. Make access to the bikes REALLY easy.

Some other possible additives / replacements that come to mind. Nitro methane if it is going in to another motorized vehicle depending on the amount it will destroy a motor designed for standard gas. DONT do this if it is being stolen for heating or cooking or something like that. liability issues here.

Then after it is gone and the culprit blows up what ever he puts it in I would casually mention that you were amazed at how fast the nitro methane you were using to clean the bikes tanks with evaporated.