I'm not a hot rod expert, thats why I come here. To learn from the guys that are. I am however an instrumentation tech by trade and tubing and fittings is kindergarten for us. I drives me nuts when I see guys talking about getting fittings from Home Depot. Please go to Swagelok.com for your fittings. Copper, stainless, Alloy 20, ***anium. Special tubing of all kinds. What could you do with rubber coated copper. Polished stainless tube looks good too. These compression fittings are rated at way over anything you'll ever run into. Buy your tubing at a local industrial instrumentation warehouse and you'll have all kinds of tube choices. It's all spendy but theres not that much to tube on most cars. I'll have $10k worth of stainless on mine...job left overs. Anyway this is probably my only post since you guys found something I know about.
Not sure why some people feel that copper is not a suitable material for fuel lines. Some factory cars came stock with it, like the 66 442 Olds with the W30 tripower option. This is the one in my Son's rpu, and those are factory original copper fuel lines on it. Don
I've seen two ways guys have made "copper" line work without John law getting creeped out. One was to run copper tubing over the top of steel. The lines look bigger than normal but that's pretty cool too. (The same car fadded wiring looms from copper tubing) The second way was to powder coat steel lines with any one of the available "copper" colored powders. Not true copper but pretty convincing.
I was just looking thru the Millers in Milwaukee post. Someone should warn all the owners of those very expensive vintage race cars. https://picasaweb.google.com/106722...authkey=Gv1sRgCIHvytPlo-ydRQ&feat=directlink#
Don, I think the differance here is there would be NO vibration from one carb to another. Just last week the copper line from the firewall mounted va***m tank to the carb sprung a leak on my '24 DB. The vibration got to it and it broke. I'd bet the copper lines on those cars at Milwaukee are cunifer {not positive of the spelling}, which is what the British used for brake lines. It's a nickle copper alloy and is VERY strong and bendable.
Copper was good enough for Cessna to run it to the oil gauge on my C-210. When I see a rat rod I just reason that at least it's dodged the s****pers and that someday someone may make an honest woman out of it. As to the safety factor, it's no less safe than a bike. Freedom.
Study before you run your mouth, copper is good enough for air planes but not cars, had a ole airplain mech ask me that one day its a long story the key is SEAMLESS!!!
Copper was used as original equipment on most U.S.A. produced cars from the earliest days of the automobile industry through at least the mid-1950's and later on some models (ie the 1966 Olds 3x2). How many millions of vehicles do you think this covers??? Br***, aluminum, and steel have also been used. Rubber vibration connections are normally used when steel or aluminum are used. Many of the factory installations with copper did not use the rubber vibration connection. Instead a vibration-loop was bent using the copper line. Would I use copper today on a non-restoration? Probably not. Steel is very easy to acquire, and bend. Would I use copper today on a restoration which originally came with copper? Certainly. Jon.
This is just poor installation. Any time you have a transition from the engine, to the frame/body , you should have an iscolator tthat is flexible. All factory lines have this. Even steel lines will snap after time. Thats why it is steel down the frame, then a piece of rubber hose and then steel again. I have a ton of Hotrod magazines from the 50s and 60s and guess what, people used copper on a few cars back then. Just because you didn't see it in your neighborhood doesn't mean it didn't exist. I have debunked quite a few so called traditionalists with photos for the 50s. I have heard it all. Like I said, different areas had different idea's. So go for it, just make sure you use flexible hose when coming from the frame to the engine. It just needs to be flexible in some way.
This is a shot of my nailhead in 1963. I guess didn't know better . Lots of miles and no probs. I do remember a damn nice 55 chev burning up at a burger joint about the same yr. Red plastic type lines on tripower.
I remember when radiators were made out of copper.They were a neat place to store water in case of a fire.
Henry Ford used steel lines that were copper plated in the 1930's. I think a lot of the GM fuel lines that have been shown are also copper plated steel. This product is still made today. Don't get this confused.
They might confuse my old eyes , but they won't fool a magnet! And like I said in my original post; unless doing a restoration that originally used copper, I would use steel (or maybe aluminum inside the engine compartment only, NEVER along the frame). Br***, copper, aluminum, and steel have all been used as O.E. Jon.
Copper tubing for fuel lines is just not safe. Copper will not stand up to vibrations, and will crack. I for one do not need fuel on hot manifolds. I don't like fires. Use stel line and a short piece of rubber fuel line, or better yet, make the steel line to fit from the fuel pump to the carb without the rubber line.
Copper is an excelent conductor of heat. Steel is a poor conductor and stainless is even worse. That's why Ma Mopar's engineers warned us to not use copper as a fuel line. Vapor lock could result from the heat under a car on the blacktop at the strip. Not my opinion but that of the engineers at Chrysler. Stainless followed by steel is the choice.
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