P38A Cutting EAS lines shorter

ar1g3 said:

I had one airline going to the rear right air spring which was scratched and leaking a bit at the compressor side. I went onto Google and found many posts, mostly on the RR.net forum, of people claiming you can easily cut the line back a tiny bit and then chamfer the edge with a pencil sharpener. So I did this. Big mistake.

I think the line is just long enough to still seal so the car is working, but I don't trust it now. So I am making this topic in the hope that people who have a similar issue find this and are warned.

On my P38 (1999 4.0 SE) the lines have a tiny bulge in them about 3cm from the end. This bulge doesn't fit in the push-fit connectors obviously. So cutting back is limited to a few mm, not enough to fix any damage/scratching. I cut back about 8mm and I think the line would go further into the connector were it not for the bulge.

Secondly, the lines are of quite a soft material. A pencil sharpener may not work. In my case the pencil shapener cut into the line and didn't nicely chamfer it, which meant I had to cut it back even more and try again.

Just a word of warning. I will have a look now at cutting the line back much further and installing a repair piece.

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Datatek said:

The bulge is there for factory assembly making it easier to push the pipe home with a tool designed for the job. Personally, I would use the old pipe to pull in a new one rather than have another potential leaking joint.

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Gord Wedman said:

I tried the pencil sharpener trick once and felt it did not work well. I use a pair of long needle nose pliers that have the tip bent at a right angle to remove/install the pipes. As they are flexible you don't need to worry about cracking them when gripping.

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