Fuel hose

[6670charger]

Hi all: 

I've had an issue for the past couple of months with a gasoline smell coming from my 88 325i. Thinking it was a slight deformity in the top of the gas tank where the pump mounts, I sort of shrugged it off as a slight vapor leak from there that I couldn't do much about short of changing out the tank. Went so far as to put some duct tape around the pump in the hope of eliminating the fume thing, but found that the top of the tank was dry and there were no fumes coming from there. Discovered yesterday after doing some driving and further looking that it's coming from under the hood. I have a small gas leak coming from the front of what I believe to be a rubber fuel line that runs along the driver's side of the engine, possibly toward the injection tube.

So far, using RealOEM as a reference, I've only been able to find a handful of rubber fuel lines in the engine bay. There are: a 561-920mm line, part #13311722565, a 32-219mm line, part #13311288284, and four different lengths of 8X13 rubber fuel hose. Without taking a bunch of stuff off of the engine, I'm inclined to think that it's either line #6 in the image below which appears to go to the pressure regulator, or maybe line #12 in the bottom pic. Looking under the hood, there is a rubber line that connects to the metal tube coming from the tank that runs to a point somewhere under the exhaust manifold. Not sure if that's line #12 as shown below.

Although fuel is dripping from a spot about midway down the engine block, I have a feeling the actual leak is further forward and that the fuel is travelling along the line to a low point where it then starts to drip from. I'd have to take off the air box to expose more of what's behind it to tell for sure, but, the only two places that are wet are behind the air box and below the regulator, and then a spot down low where the fuel has been dripping onto.

To those of you who have been working on these engines for years and know them like the back of your hands, are there any other fuel hoses in the engine bay that I'm missing? 

[B C]

number 12 isnt located at the back of the fuel rail on any of the M20s I have worked on.

Off the top of my head, you have the following possible sources of fuel leaks in the engine bay:

Fuel feed line running along the drivers side frame rail, up near the block then to the front of the fuel rail.
Fuel return line running parallel with the feed line, but connecting to the fuel pressure regulator

The fuel pressure regulator 

The fuel rail

The fuel injector o-rings

The evap canister and evap lines

[YoungCR]

I think Snap named them all, can't thing of any others in the engine bay either. I'd say just replace all the lines in your bay, it'll only take a couple hours and its a cheap/easy maintenance to-do item to check off. The plastic T fittings will probably need to be replaced too as mine snapped when removing my old lines

[6670charger]

OK. Was sort of thinking that might not be the worst idea anyway since to the best of my knowledge, they're all original lines yet. Seems like it's probably either the feed or return line as stated as it seems to be coming from somewhere near the pressure regulator. The regulator wasn't leaking anything when I had the engine running yesterday. Seemed to be coming from somewhere just below it.

Thanks.

[6670charger]

Found it. It was the main feed line. Got a hold of a length of 8X13 hose from my local dealership that they just happened to have in stock from a return. The 1 meter length was just enough to swap out the bad line with a couple of inches to spare. Will have to change out the rest of the pieces over the coming months when it gets a little warmer.

Thanks to all who replied.

[jc43089]

Glad you got it figured out, Good call on OE hose, I have tried fuel injection hose from Farm and Fleet, it only lasts about a year or two before it starts leaking around the ends from getting hard.  This was on our Maxima, I plan to replace it in the near future with BMW OE fuel line.