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Got a question I feel I should probably know, but here it goes.
Noticed I had a small fuel leak at the fuel inlet on my 69 H/O yesterday. Went to tighten it and noticed it was pretty tight already, gave it a small nudge as I know overtightening is as bad as not as tight, it seemed to stop.
I decided today to take the line and filter housing off anyway and replace the fuel filter for the heck of it.
Noticed the one on there is the 'nylon' ring. I didn't have one but had what I'd call some 'old school' ones, same exact diameter, but of course thinner, pictured below right.
Re-installed, ran the car, no discernable leaks.
Are the nylon ones the 'proper' ones to use, will the other work as good or are they 'frowned' on nowadays in lieu of the nylon rings? Any thoughts appreciated, thanks.
I just brought this up in another thread recently. AFAIK, the nylon rings are what I consider cheap replacements. The red one on the right in your photo is the one I would use if I had the choice. Again, AFAIK, the originals were a steel ring with a sealer coating. Those are always my choice if I have one and it’s not too beat up.
Agree, the early ('71 and before) original rings were coated steel, larger in diameter and went more forward on the inlet nut. The '72 and later original rings were nylon and snapped onto the innermost end of the filter housing/inlet nut. I'd expect the correct nylon dimension ring would work in place of the early steel ones but i'm not certain.
I've never seen a carburetor rebuild kit that had the OE steel ring. They usually have the white plastic ring on the left of your picture. There were many work around parts to overcome the leaky fuel inlet on a Quadrajet carburetor. The proper way to repair it is to disassemble the carburetor and install a heli-coil in the fuel bowl to repair the threads.
For those who don't know, the 7/8" inlet fitting uses the gasket that is outside the threads, as shown here, and the 1" inlet fitting uses a smaller nylon gasket that is inside the threads. That OEM nylon gasket is thinner and I suspect softer than the one in the photo above. And yeah, I haven't seen the OEM rubber-coated metal inlet gasket in decades. The fiber one always works for me.
Yes, the ones I have I would describe as the 'fiber' ring which is what I used, its on the shoulder of the nut per Joe's 1st pic.
I'll keep my eye on it to validate its working properly.
