We’re asking all customers who’ve either had a TVR chassis refurbishment carried out with us, or possibly a kit car built by us to please book their cars back in with us at their earliest possible convenience for an inspection of the rubber fuel lines. If we have changed the fuel lines on your car, we need to hear from you!
It has been noted that some cars fitted with certain types of rubber fuel hose fitted by us during restoration works are showing premature signs of deterioration. Though the hose may be marked correctly through either an SAE or ISO approval rating, we believe there is a chance that a faulty batch of hose has found it’s way to us in the past couple of years.
We are unable to identify which supplier the hose has come from, sadly. We are therefore offering to replace under warranty (irrelevant of timescale or mileage since repair) any car we inspect and find fault with. We’re asking all customers to book their cars in with us at their earliest convenience so we can inspect and determine whether their car is affected by this particular type of fuel hose. Though we believe only a small number of cars will be affected, we’re asking to look at them all.
We believe the faulty grade of hose to be 7.6mm internal diameter, and to be marked as ‘SAE J30R9’ grade fuel hose. However, we politely request we inspect the car regardless of hose marking, purely for peace of mind.
There is a good chance the number of affected vehicles will be low, due to the fashion in which we buy our stock (we only go through 15-20m a year, so we’ve not been working from a 100m reel bought four years ago, for example. We believe the number of affected cars will turn out to be small.
J30R9 fuel hose as fitted in March 2015
For reference, the hose in the attached image was fitted in March 2015. It doesn’t bear relevance as to where on the vehicle this occurred – THE ENTIRE FUEL LINE COULD BE AFFECTED, AND NEEDS TO BE INSPECTED AND POSSIBLY RENEWED AT NO COST TO YOU.
We have now used a different, but equally well-respected supplier for a fresh batch of J30R9 and A1-grade fuel hoses to retrofit to any affected cars. This is a supplier we have not used in the past.
If your car is currently with us, or is due to be with us for similar works, it will be fitted out with the same hose we are using for the rectifications jobs as a matter of course.
We’ve tried to contact all customers we still have contact details for. If you’ve used us in the past, and have not received any correspondence, please contact us to book your car in for an inspection.
On the back of this, we strongly advise anybody who hasn’t had their fuel lines changed recently (but has read this far) to still go and inspect your fuel lines. The increased levels of ethanol in fuel today is playing havoc with certain systems on cars, and the fuel hose affected in this image is J30R9 – a higher permittivity grade hose than A1 (ISO7840). An old hose from 1992 designed to handle early incarnations of unleaded petrol stands very little chance against the increased ethanol in fuels today. We believe the ethanol content is to blame here, and that although the hose should be capable of working with it, a certain batch seems to be struggling.
We hope there are no more affected cars and that the inspections will prove fruitless. We thank you in advance for your cooperation, and apologise in advance for any plans that may be affected by this.
Thanks,
Rich
