GTA atmo fuel lines and oil in spark plug tube

What are people's views on replacing GTA fuel lines, given that they are now probably 30 years old and with the likelihood of increased ethanol content in fuel?

Has anyone replaced theirs? If so, what sort of spec?

My 1990 GTA atmo also seems to have oil leaking into the spark plug tube on cylinder 6. I guess it is the seal at the base of the tube. Has anyone had this and fixed it? From what I can see of Simon Auto's parts catalogue the seals (ref 011016) appear to be on the first page.

[mettersl]

I had mine repiped with more ethanol resistant pipes (r6) when it was rebuilt, the exception is that there are a pair of diameter change pipes where the fuel comes out of the fuel tank that aren't easy to source, but looked fine. They are also low down in the car and you will need to drain the tank if you can find replacements.
With hindsight I'd have used the most resistant rubbers (r9) , but the new ones (r6) are allegedly good for 10 years with E10 anyway according to some sources anyway, and are looking fine at the moment. At least on an atmo there isn't much pressure, unlike the turbo cars. On an atmo there are a surprising number of pipes around the fuel metering unit up by the coil. The front/back ones are metal anyway.
The UK only has e5 at present (5%) , so I think I'll be ok for now. If I was working on a car now, I'd change them whenever I took them apart, it's not expensive, but it is time consuming.
I'll change mine again to r9 when I next have reason to take it apart.

[johnb]

My 1990 GTA atmo also seems to have oil leaking into the spark plug tube on cylinder 6. I guess it is the seal at the base of the tube. Has anyone had this and fixed it? From what I can see of Simon Auto's parts catalogue the seals (ref 011016) appear to be on the first page.

I have an A310V6 with similar engine. I could be wrong but I think Simon parts 011016 are the rubber seals (6 off) between the inlet manifold and the cylinder heads. These can be seen in the attached photo of my engine during its rebuild. The seals are sat in the holes of the spacers 011023. I bought them as a part of the full gasket set 011042.

On my engine there aren't any seals in the spark plug recesses/tubes so I don't know where the oil on your engine could be coming from. I guess all that you can do is clean the oil from the recess whilst the plug is still in place. Then run the engine to see if the oil reappears over a time period. I guess further investigation depends upon how much oil is appearing over what length of time.

Might be worth looking at the spark plug seating face and the seating face in the cylinder head in case it's been blowing back. If this were the case though I think you'd only see small traces of oil. I can't imagine that it could be a crack in the head between the spark plug recess and the inside of the rocker/camshaft gallery. The oil filler neck is closer to cylinders 4 & 5 rather than 6 so unlikely to be from topping up the oil, although oil could run along the bottom of a filler bottle in that direction from the bottle neck.

Thanks, Lee. Looks like r9 is the way to go, when I get it done.

Thanks, Jon. Yes it is a small amount of oil that 'bubbles' out of the spark plug boot. Further investigation needed.

[johnb]

Thanks, Lee. Looks like r9 is the way to go, when I get it done.

Thanks, Jon. Yes it is a small amount of oil that 'bubbles' out of the spark plug boot. Further investigation needed.

That sounds unusual. When you say the spark plug boot do you mean the circular ‘cover’ part of the boot that sits on the top of the tube in the plug recess? If so, is the plug recess filling with oil?

Atmo rocker covers are a pain to seal. Are you sure it's not coming out there ? and then just pooling in the spark plug area ?
The pressed sheet steel rocker covers don't always seal well against the gaskets as they bend a bit when tightened. Even the pros who work on these all the time struggle to seal these on the Atmo first or even second time. I always thought about replacing the steel with some cast prv covers (I think I've seen others do this)

[johnb]

Good point Dave,

I'd forgotten that the GTA rocker covers were pressed steel. The A310V6 rocker covers are the cast variety as can be seen in my photo. So far they've kept the oil in.

I didn't notice the oil leaking from the rockers and collecting by the spark plug tube, but will check. There appeared to be a very small amount oil on the wall of the spark plug tube.