70s mechanical gauge fitting

Apr 21, 2006 4 Replies

My 76 C-10 cracked the steel oil pressure line at the firewall grommet. I've searched for the 1/8 male compression fittings to replace this and have come up empty-handed. I have a Sun Pro kit that has every kind of fitting except the right one. Most parts stores give me a blank stare, though Auto Zone dug up a couple of female unions that I could use to cobble things together. Does anybody have a source for these fittings, or a decent workaround?



Best regards, Ralph in NH


clean it up and SOLDER or BRAZE the crack

Ralph Naylor wrote:

How about a plain old hardware store? Plumbing is plumbing, brass fittings are brass fittings. The question should be why did it crack? They only crack if they are seeing a lot of flex, and the only reason I know that they would see that is if the engine was moving around from worn or broken motor mounts.. Weird is the fact that its steel tubing, most the time it was copper, and now a days cheap ass plastic tubing. I think steel is a better choice, copper can fail from common vibration inherent in any engine application. That's why copper is verboten for fuel lines.

Whitelightning

Well, 30 years of rust and vibration, with the final insult being the nudge it got when I was fiddling with the distributor. It's definitely steel from end to end. It comes out of the engine to a rubber-jacketed coil, then up to an oddball male-male union hanging in mid-air. Then about eight inches to a turn at the firewall, and on to the gauge. The problem with hardware stores is none of them seem to carry 1/8 tubing and fittings. Also, this is a compression fitting I haven't seen before, a single-piece male threaded nut/ferrule. I can tear everything out and do whatever I want, because ultimately the block fitting is 1/8 pipe, but I'm still stuck when I get to the gauge - I either find one of these fittings, or reuse one of the old ends.

How about checking the junk yard...uh auto recycling center for a like truck?

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