Now, I wonder if copper reacts to spit. Hang on....

There's been a few times when I've been pretty pissed off at my bike, but I'll never piss on it.

so the moral of the story is, if you've got copper fuel lines, dont piss in your tank

SS would be an option....

Pop Rivet wrote:
copper fuel lines and brass fittings were widely use in in auto

and heavy equipment fuel lines for years until use of rubber and now nylon...

What Pop said, but a word of warning... If you decide to run a copper fuel line, make sure you insulate it good where it runs between the cylinders, or reroute it so it doesn't. I tried it for a while last summer but neglected to insulate the line and in hot conditions the fuel line would vapor lock. Switched to a rubber fuel line with the heat sink coil and no more vapor lock.

In The Wind,
Aaron

What EXACTLY is vapor lock, and what is heat sink coil? I like the copper, however if I use rubber fuel line it would eliminate one of the short sections of fuel line and 2 clamps.
2005Roadstar wrote:
Pop Rivet wrote:
copper fuel lines and brass fittings were widely use in in auto

and heavy equipment fuel lines for years until use of rubber and now nylon...

What Pop said, but a word of warning... If you decide to run a copper fuel line, make sure you insulate it good where it runs between the cylinders, or reroute it so it doesn't. I tried it for a while last summer but neglected to insulate the line and in hot conditions the fuel line would vapor lock. Switched to a rubber fuel line with the heat sink coil and no more vapor lock.

In The Wind,
Aaron

Gasoline will not hurt copper line! But I would be wary of using copper line on a V-Twin due to the vibration at hand. Metallic lines, especially copper and aluminum do not stand up to vibration well. Vibration causes stress-cracking in these metal lines, and you could end up with a fire when gas spills all over your engine! The lines will break at the compression fittings conections!
I had a big compressor at work with copper valve actuator lines, and they kept breaking off due to the vibration. I used some "316SS Swagelok" fittings and SS line to replace the copper lines. It worked like a charm! And stainless line looks pretty cool too.
Still, I'm not sure if I'd trust it for gasline on a bike, unless you used lots of rubber-lined clamp brackets to stop the lines from vibrating and breaking off at the compression fittings. Those brackets are ugly, unless you are building inside a refinery or gas plant.

eblack wrote:
What EXACTLY is vapor lock, and what is heat sink coil? I like the copper, however if I use rubber fuel line it would eliminate one of the short sections of fuel line and 2 clamps.

Basically, vapor lock is caused by the fuel line getting so hot that the fuel in the line starts to vaporize and is no longer entering the carb as a liquid and essentially you are running out of gas.

In some applications you want that. A perfect example of this is in Coleman and small backpacking stoves that use white gas. If you've ever noticed, the fuel lines on these types of stoves are routed along side or in the burner before they actually enter the burner. Thats why you get flare-up when you first light these types of stoves. You are lighting raw fuel, but once the fuel line heats up the fuel enters the burner as a vapor, giving a nice blue, even flame. Probably way more information that you were looking for, but......

As for the heat sink coil, I'm not sure if thats what it's actually called, but it's the black spring looking thing that is around the rubber portions of the fuel lines. I guess it probably serves two purposes. 1) It helps disipate heat and 2) it protects the fuel line from hot surfaces.

Hope this has been of some help.

In The Wind,
Aaron

hey pop rivet, where have you found those bag guards pockets?

eirinn99 wrote:
hey pop rivet, where have you found those bag guards pockets?

They are just Yammi tool pouches... just opened the flap and hung them over the Guard...