Gates Hose Failure Story from Facebook

[smallspeed]

Just read this post on facebook - thought it might be of interest..

Original post and follow up pics here..

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... __tn__=C-R

..you'll have to copy and paste as the link contains square brackets so won't convert to a hyperlink!

Hose-Gate

Well y'all have heard of Watergate, we have recently had VW's Diesel-Gate and now we have Hose-Gate.

For those of you with short attention spans, or are looking for posts with tits and bums, or pictures to colour in, please scroll on. For the rest of the automotive and motorcycle community concerned about safety, read on.

We recently had my boys' Ducati 748SPS serviced by Ramon at Moto Magnet in Auckland. It was bought with a sketchy service history and the instructions to Ramon were to give it a full baseline service so that we were then dealing with something we trusted. We said 'do everything you would do as if it were your own bike'. That is exactly what he did.

Part of the service is to pull the tank base and change the internal EFI fuel filter. This often exposes perishing flexible hoses within the tank. No issue - Ramon has done hundreds of similar jobs before. Bang on some new Gates Submersible 5/16 hose, a few new EFI clips to secure and 'Bob's your Uncle'.

Only this time he had run out of the 2015 roll of Gates hose he had been previously using. Last bit used on the bike before our one. No issue he thought - rock down to GSS Performance and grab another cut length of hose for stock.

The new 2017 hose felt softer to pinch and was keener to kink in a bend test - but theoretically was the same as the hose he had been using since he opened the shop with some ex-Haldanes stock from the receivers. All up to the standard SAE 30R10 spec.

Bike was test ridden and pronounced fit to release to the owner. I picked it up and rode it about 25kms back to home and parked it up in the workshop here. Went really nicely.

Went back to gaze at it about an hour later and here it was discharging the entire contents of the fuel tank all over the still warm rear cylinder.

Well that could have been interesting... Perhaps my final 15 minutes of fame in a screaming yellow fireball down the Southern Motorway and a resulting small segment on the 6:00 p.m. news 'Flaming insurance broker selfishly holds up commuters'.

A postmortem revealed that one of the tank breather hoses had become detached from the tank base connection spigot - it had simply overcome the pressure of the EFI clip and detached from the spigot, thus venting the entire tank contents all over the engine.

What the f***!!

Ramon had used the same hose and clips for his countless years of servicing Ducatis. This was the first recorded failure.

There are two things in play here. Firstly the very shitty design of the Ducati connection spigot (tapered with casting draft and thus no barb to retain the hose) but secondly the behavior of the new Gates hose. The old Gates hose (<=2015) performed in exactly the same situation without issue.

An immersion test of the 2017 produced Gates Submersible hose gave alarming results. A 4 day bath in a jar of standard Mobil 98, revealed that the hose had swollen significantly - fuel wicking down the internal roving at either end and swelling the hose from a nominal 13.9mm to over 16.0mm at either end. The swelling was accompanied by a significant softening of the hose.

We strongly believe that the swelling and softening of the hose was the reason that the hose overcame the clip pressure and detached from the vent spigot.

We are not talking about exotic fuel here - this is standard NZ pump gas.

So where are we going with this?

A sample of the suspect hose has been returned to Gates Australia for testing. At first my thoughts were that the new hose was perhaps counterfeit (it retails for close to $80 per foot) but a bagged 300mm length of hose from Repco (which turned out to be the same week and year of manufacture) exhibited exactly the same behavior. We understand that the difference between the previously reliable Gates hose, is that from 2016, all of their 5/16" hose has been manufactured in Thailand, rather than the USA.

So far a fairly predictable Corporate response from Gates. I'll post more as this unravels.

Clearly the current Gates Thailand produced hose would seem to be unfit for purpose - i.e. submersing in fuel...

I have currently 2 other samples of hose on test and we are waiting for a third to arrive from Proflow in Australia.

The Mackay 5/16 hose is performing well, but has been removed from production due to issues I gather with E85 in Australia.

We have a sample of Dayco hose which is performing very well - 4 days in Mobil 98 and no measurable change in dimensions and no discernible change in hardness.

So far the Dayco hose would appear to be the safe solution moving forward. It's expensive at $40 or so per 300mm or $400 per 3.0mtrs, but what price your safety? The sample of hose we have was manufactured in 2015 in the USA, but Dayco have confirmed today that their current hose is still manufactured in the USA and there have been no changes to the hose composition.

In terms of addressing the inherent Ducati design failure of the tapered vent connection posts, I have modified 2 tank bases by building up the spigots with weld and filing to create a hose barb. This like anything I seem to tackle is not that straightforward - the base has to be completely stripped of the fuel reg and o-rings, plus the external tank connections have to be removed for bead blasting the case and subsequent welding. We managed to remove one of the connectors, but the other sheared off like a carrot due to the heat cycles from living directly above the rear cylinder. So not a $2.00 or 5 minute fix.

So the suggestion is that you avoid >2015 Gates Submersible hose like the plague. I'm really well insured (and would no doubt burn quite well with my perpetual alcohol content) but they only made 700 or so 748 SPS's, so this story could have had a very tragic outcome...

[Sam]

Part of the thrill of Italian bikes is where you will be when it next catches fire and the adventure of getting home afterwards.

[smallspeed]

yeah i know all about that
i know there's been a lot of chat about fuel hose generally, so thought I'd share just incase its relevant to others who have had issues, like Gridway for example..

[Sam]

Thanks. I replaced some hose in the tank of my Guzzi last year so will check it.