Morris Minor Owners Club

Due to the old steel pipe having to be cut at the tank end in order to remove the tank I now need to fit a new copper one.
Any advice on how to do this would be useful having never done it before!
I still have the old steel one which I took out so would it be a case of matching the new one up to this to copy the bends?I presume I will need a pipe bender particularly in order to achieve the 180 bend where the pipe joins the fuel pump?
I'd be interested to know if anyone carrying out a restoration had to renew the old steel pipe and if so how they did it.

Heat the old tank end and the solder will melt. Re-solder to the new pipe. bend it by hand, it is quite easy to do. For the pump end you can roll it round a bottle or tin can.

Rob, what would you heat it with? A soldering iron? I'd be very nervous of a naked flame anywhere near a fuel tank, even if empty........

You take the nut off the tank and the nipple is inside, soldered onto the end of the old pipe. You unsolder and resolder it on the bench.

Aha! I see! That makes perfect sense. I was just a bit worried 'cause a mate put himself in hospital for two weeks after an accident involving a fuel can and a bonfire!

RobThomas wrote: ↑Fri Mar 08, 2019 6:01 pm Heat the old tank end and the solder will melt. Re-solder to the new pipe.

The new pipe will have both the tank and pump fittings attached so that's not a problem Rob. I just wanted to know whether it was better to match up the new pipe to the old before fitting or not.

Being soft copper you can bend it in situ with little effort. It is best to start, I think, at the back with the pipe fitted to the tank and unroll it from the roll as you work forwards. If you run it through the hole in the crossmember then you might find it hard to avoid damage as you drop the gearbox so I usually run it slightly clear of the crossmember. Tie-wrap some rubber hose round where it might chafe any metalwork. Might also be good to run away from the exhaust if it is a Series MM and to slip some heat-shield wrap over it as it passes the battery tray or even run it behind the pump to keep it out of the heat as much as possible. Not original but it helps.

Not how the car looks now. Lots of tuning gubbins in the way.

Cheers for that Rob. The car is a late Traveller.

I found it easiest to bend it to the shape of the old one first then fit it, you might have to bend it a bit more to get it in but it straightrns out easily enough once in place.

kevin s wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2019 9:41 pm I found it easiest to bend it to the shape of the old one first then fit it, you might have to bend it a bit more to get it in but it straightrns out easily enough once in place.

That's what I had intended to do. Did you feed it through from the pump end?

I fed it in from the rear but it was up on a 4 post lift which makes this much easier.