Started to smell fuel outside the driver's door, took it to my local mechanic who put it up on the rack and located a leak in the fuel line under the driver's seat..thus between filter/pump and engine. He didn't seem to know how to source a replacement nor interested in taking on the job. I've looked around online but can't say I've found anything conclusive.

Any advice would be welcome.
Thanks.

 

Whenever my shop needed to fix/replace one of those fuel lines I would get one from mt local Volvo junkyard. Perhaps there are still some to be found.

 

if its a hard line, use Cupronickel brake line tubing to fabricate a replacement, its real easy to bend to a radius, and solder on banjo fittings and so forth. if its a soft line, use quality 6 mm fuel injection hose, like BMW branded.

 

There are two fuel lines on the 240 - a high pressure line (45+ PSI) and a low pressure return line. The high pressure line is made of nylon and rarely leaks. For leaks in the high pressure lines, my experience has been with a fine leak at the fuel pump due to a rusted out banjo fitting coming out of the fuel filter. I had this problem on two of my 240s. The first one I fixed using a spare I had when I saved the fuel pump off of an '89 my son totaled. The second time I found someone on EBay that was manufacturing replacements (Volvo has them NLA). This is what I bought:

https://www.ebay.com/p/1431743130?ii...SABEgKiLvD_BwE

The ones in the junkyards around me (if you can find one) usually are in as bad a shape as the one I have on there. To install the fitting you need to heat the nylon tubing with a heat gun, remove the old fitting and slide in the new.

The low pressure line is steel and will rust over time and develop leaks. As Pierce stated, you can fabricate new line using the Cupronickel brake line and it will never rust. You can find that on Amazon fairly cheap.

 

That's very helpful as I was confused over the material types used. Makes sense. I'll see if I can figure out which line is the culprit and go on from there. Thanks!

 

Upon closer inspection, the leak seems to be coming from the filter/pump housing and not in the middle of the line like I was lead to believe. And it's quite a leak!

The positive being it sounds much simpler to replace the filter and be done with it,

The negative being that I had suggested to the mechanic that it was the filter and he decided that he didn't want to do the job and called the problem a leak in the line... unless there's some kinda misunderstanding. Unfortunate because I trusted the guy.


Update: Apparently the leak is sporadic. After cleaning the filter/pump housing with brake cleaner and starting it back up, I couldn't reproduce the leak. Perhaps earlier leak from the cold morning start was fuel pressure built up. I have noticed the fuel smell to be somewhat sporadic since it started. I'm looking at ordering filter and parts, but any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks

 

it very well could be one or another of hte 'banjo' fittings that interconnect the filter and pump...

 

That sounds right. Just ordered a filter, a bolt and a connecting line with the banjo bolt from IPD. Should be able to do it without even lifting the car. Hopefully that's it. The filter is looking very tired, spotted with rust. Considering doing the pump while I'm under there.

 

Finally got this whole thing back together. New pump, filter, banjo bolt, and connecting hose between the filter and pump. no leaks. The pump looked original, the filter a little cleaner. The whole housing was completely covered in a clump of oil and dirt. the long horizontal bolt that closes the ring around the pump was so corroded I needed to cut and replace it, and the rubber feet between the two housing plates were pretty shot, but otherwise no big hangups.

Thanks for your help!!!