Air Cleaner, Vent Hose, & Vacuum Caps

A few days ago, I ordered this Empi foam air cleaner (Amazon link).

It’s a good fit, but I feel like it could use a half inch riser on top of the carb. The air cleaner sits at a little bit of an angle against the top of the choke assembly. Also, the position of the crankcase ventilation nipple on this air cleaner makes it a little too far of a stretch for the old hose.

I stopped by O’Reilly this afternoon and picked up two feet of 1/2 inch fuel line. The original hose is about 14 inches, so I figured that 24 would give me plenty to work with.

I tried various positions and routing, but “down and out” was the only one that would work. I could have routed it around the whole engine bay if I had another foot of hose, but who really cares how it looks. New, shiny rubber front and center.

Speaking of which, the old, fabric wrapped hose wasn’t doing too well.

That looks like the fuel lines did. Don’t be fooled by the nice condition of the fabric covering.

I happened to brush my hand against this “vacuum cap” and the screw fell out. It was a really loose fit. I’ll get back to that once I’ve finished the job at hand.

Once I gave in and routed the vent hose across the top of the generator, I had cut off a few inches to get a good, clean fit. Knowing that this new hose is going to be jiggling around rubbing against everything, I took one of the off-cuts of fuel line and taco’ed it around the new hose. A few zip ties snugged it up.

She’s not going to win any beauty pageants, but it’s fine.

I had bought a pack of assorted vacuum caps off the wall at O’Reilly last year and never got around to replacing those homemade “screw jammed in a hose” deals.

I manage to cut myself every time I’m working on something. This time, it was my super sharp pocket knife that tried to take half my thumb off.

Last one…

And when finished, I chucked all of the old ones back in the pack, so when these crappy Dorman parts fail, I can go back to what had been working on there for years.