Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026

Today I got out to the garage to further examine the fuel leak I was having in the fuel line.

A couple of years ago when I got my wagon and took it to our local cruise-in, one of the guys nudged me and gave me a rather stern warning regarding my use of a clear plastic fuel filter.

Frankly, I pretty much shrugged off his dire prediction of pending doom from a fuel-fed fire caused by a leaking plastic fuel filter.

And the gas line WAS leaking fuel, I had yet to determine just where the leak was. The fuel line had to be years old; the ends had been clamped, unclamped and reclamped many, many times with the look of the hose ends; they had lost their elasticity and had conformed to the shape of the hose clamps.

I took the line off my Chinese Edelbrock clone and then blocked off the end of the fuel line. When Elijah cranked the engine over, I had fuel squirting from the line on one end of the fuel filter. Despite the appearance that the fuel line was intact, apparently the age-hardened rubber line wasn’t sealing despite the worm gear clamps being tight.

I had thought initially the old filter — a plastic bodied clear one — was leaking, so I bought a new metal one. Today,, I went to Advance Auto Parts and bought 3 feet of new 3/8-inch fuel line.

I didn’t replace the line from the fuel filter down to the fuel pump; however, I cut about an inch off the hose below the fuel filter, where the hose was more pliable.

I attached the filter on the new cut (and more pliable) fuel line, and the clamp tightened up nicely on the low end of the filter. I ran a new length of line from the fuel filter’s output to the carb.

First, I installed the end of the new line on the fuel inlet. I ran a longer piece of new line to the output of the filter. The longer section of fuel line allows it to be positioned up against the inner fender. This way if the line begins to leak again, the fuel will no longer spray onto the hot exhaust headers and potentially start a fire.

I started the engine and thankfully, there were no leaks.

However, after the engine ran a bit, I saw some smoke burning something off the headers. Turned out to be oil. Apparently, my recently installed Chevy valve cover on the passenger side had leaked some oil. Not a lot of oil, but some. So far, the valve cover hold downs have come up either loose or sorta loose. I’m pretty sure that’s responsible for smoke. Time will tell.

I’m just happy to have the leak fixed; however, if I hadn’t had to charge the battery Friday, I wouldn’t have discovered the fuel leak.

I’m in the process of a couple different things, though the local Christmas parade is now at the top of the list. The parade is Dec. 3rd, and I have less than a month to get the decorations completed. I’ll end this entry with a photo of my 55 wagon dressed in its Christmas parade finery.