About two months ago I got a new daily driver -- a 2001 BMW 325Xi wagon. I bought the car from a small dealer who flipped cars out of his house. He'd bought it at auction, so there were no repair records. However, the price was right, the car had 144k and zero rust and seemed in excellent shape. As soon as I got it, I changed the fluids. And there are a lot -- oil, brakes, gear box, transfer case, front and rear diff.
The next level of preventative maintenance was to do the troika of cooling system, oil separator, and VANOS seals, all of which I will write about in an upcoming Roundel article. Doing this made me feel nearly invincible in the car, which is what I needed, since I'm about to take my youngest boy Aaron on six college visits over the next two weekends.
But one obvious preventative maintenance item remained -- the fuel filter. Suspecting you're driving around with a ten year old fuel filter with 144k worth of crud in it does not exactly inspire confidence on long drives. So I ordered one, which is a pricey little item (about $45, for a fuel filter) because it has the fuel pressure regulator built in.
The night before taking Aaron for a college visit in NYC, I thought I'd install it.
As you may know, I have a mid-rise scissors lift. In a perfect world I'd have a post lift, but I don't have the ceiling height to support it. The mid-rise is a compromise. It can pick the car up four feet, which is high enough to sit, butt on the floor, upright beneath the car. For an old guy with a bad back, this is bliss.
But the body of the mid-rise lift is in the way of the underside of the car. Usually this isn't a big deal, as most of the things you wind up doing are in the front, the back, or at the wheels. Even pulling a transmission or a driveshaft isn't as problematic as you'd think because they're right in the middle up under the tunnel, which gives added space.
No, the only problem for the mid-rise has been... these modern BMW fuel filters that are mounted beneath the car, about under the driver's seat. This puts them directly above the body of the lift. It's not that you have no room; you have perhaps eight inches.
But I put the car up on the lift, pulled the center under-cover, pulled the fuel filter cover -- which clearly had never been removed -- and there was the fuel filter.
Now, I know fuel filters. I don't need to consult a repair manual or an on-line DIY guide to change a freaking fuel filter. And yet, this one had two hoses feeding it at the back end and one at the front end. And each hose was perhaps a two-inch stub section, itself hose-clamped to a plastic line.
Still, this ain't rocket science. Undo the hose clamps, yank out the old, stick in the new. Do it quickly to minimize fuel spillage.
And, immediately, I was stymied. The galvanization of body panels, the use of undercoating, and the use of plastic liners and undercovers has dramatically reduced under-body rust, but all the ancillary metal under-components still oxidize. Neither screwdriver nor small socket could free any of the hose clamps.
I stopped.
I've long been an adherent to the "look the beast in the eye" philosophy. If you don't want to battle it to the death, back slowly out of the cave. I realized none of these hose clamps would come off without a fight. Normally I'd use a Dremel tool and a cutting wheel, but you don't want to do that in close proximity to gas because of the danger of sparks. I thought... no, I don't need to change this fuel filter right now, and I DO need to use the car to drive to NYC tomorrow. Stop. Just stop.
I began to put the covers back on.
And then I stopped again.
Jesus, Siegel, they're hose clamps. You're not going to be stymied by hose clamps, are you, mister you-call-yourself Hack Mechanic?
No indeed.
A Vice Grip placed on the screw part of the hose clamp wouldn't loosen it, but it did a nice job of twisting and snapping the banding material of all six clamps.
I took a disposable aluminum roasting pan and put it beneath the filter to catch the gas that certainly would flow when I started pulling the lines off. Problem was, the height of the pan about used up the clearance between the lift and the body of the car, leaving little room to pull the hoses off with my hands. The rubber stub hoses all seemed flexible and reusable, but one just wouldn't pull off the filter. I took an X-Acto knife and tried to cut the hose. Because of the lack of access, I cut into the hose all right, but couldn't sever it cleanly. Gas started flowing out. I thought I'd wait it out, just wanted for the gas to stop.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Obviously it was gravity-feeding gas from the tank. I was in danger of filling up the roasting pan.
I opened both doors to the garage and grabbed a fire extinguisher.
I tried to stop the flow of gas with a needle-nosed vise grip, but the cut I'd make in the rubber hose was too close to the plastic end of the line. I pulled the pan away so I'd have clearance and let the gas flow onto the floor while I cut all the way through the hose. I grabbed a 1/4" extension to shove it into the end of the hose and stop it up, but, again, I'd accidentally made the cut in the hose so close to the plastic end of the line that I couldn't stop up the rubber end.
I took a second aluminum roasting pan, swapped it with the nearly overflowing first one, cut a fresh section of 2" rubber hose, jammed the 1/4" extension in the end, then pulled the pan away so I'd have clearance. I used the X-Acto knife to cut the hose completely off the plastic end. Finally I could jam on the stub hose with the plugged end.
The flow of gas stopped.
Now I could prepare three stub hoses, install them all onto the filter, hose-clamp them in place, and have three hose clamps at the ready for the other ends of the hoses. This let me pull the plug off the gas line and slip the new filter line over it with a minimum of spilled gas.
When I was done, I took the gas-soaked greasy jeans and t-shirt I was wearing and threw them in the garbage. I think that, had I walked into the house wearing these rags and someone flicked a light switch or changed the channel on the television, the fumes might have turned me into The Human Torch.
On the one hand, if you're not going to change a fuel filter yourself, what are you going to fix? But on the other, having my hands drenched in gas and having it run down my arm into my armpit is an experience best left behind with my 20s. Next time I have to do one of these, I'll make a cleaner cut with the X-Acto knife, I'll do it closer to the filter to leave some hose to pinch, and I'll have a variety of plugging mechanisms at the ready.
But I am glad I got the filter changed. Cooper Union here we come!
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