I had a really nice Dino 246GTS dropped off at my shop for a service this week. It’s a new car to me so I took it out for a test drive to see if it needed anything more than a fluid change. The car was recently purchased by a customer of mine after if was fully restored by a pretty well known restoration shop on the West Coast.

I jacked the car up in the air to check underneath and to start changing out the fluids.

After just a few minutes of sitting, I noticed a puddle of fluid forming under the car and realized it was gasoline. I had put some fresh fuel in the tank before my test drive because the low fuel level light was on, but there was enough pressure from the 5 gallons to drip out from somewhere.

Looking under the car for the first time, I found the whole fuel filter/pump assembly soaked in fuel. From the color of the residue, this leaking was probably happening for a while.

After cleaning everything off and blowing everything dry with compressed air, I found several sources of fuel leaks. The fuel lines were the concours correct green “cavis” hose, but they had gotten rock hard and leaking at the fittings. The irony of using these fuel lines is they may win you points at a car show, but they risk setting your car on fire when they harden and leak! Something in modern fuel seems to accelerating this degradation, so I’m not a fan of using these lines. Since this fuel assembly is under the car and not easily seen, I will be replacing these with rubber hoses. While I’m at it, I’ll be changing the carburetor lines that use the same stuff, Be dammed the Concours Judges! (…at least until the owner decides he wants to win a Platinum!)

The fuel filter canister gasket was also leaking so I replaced it with a new one along with a new filter. The fuel bowl was also cleaned out of the sediment that accumulated since the last time this filter was changed. It should all be good to go when all the soft parts are replaced!