Both the yellow (larger) and the greenish blue (smaller) Troy-Bilt TB146 EC cultivator gas hoses crumbled when I took it out of storage.
Is there something inside the gas tank that holds them in place?
The hoses are a tight slip fit in the holes in the tank . The supply line will usually have a filter on the inside end . I install them by cutting the end of the hose at a long taper to get it started in the hole , pull it in as far as needed with long nose pliers or a hemostat then cut it off square and install the filter. The return hose needs only to come inside the tank , supply needs to be long enough to reach the bottom of the tank - unless you only want to use the top half ...
Agree, and that makes the right hose size both inside and outside dimensions critical. It's always a pain to figure out what size they are, unless you want to order the official ones at 10x the cost. I'd ad to the above that for the feed line you can push/pull it a lot farther into the tank so you can easily get the end of it out the fill opening to put the filter on, then pull it back to the correct length.
OK. Good. That's what I was hoping. The larger yellow hose coming out the top of the carb is pulled out cleanly so am I to conclude it's the return?
The smaller greenish blue is the one that broke at the tank edge so it's currently blocking the hole (I can probably pick it out though).
Am I to assume that's the input fuel line to the carb?
I hadn't thought of the filter. It must be still inside the tank.
What I think I'll do is poke out the greenish blue hose from its hole in the gas tank and see if I can shake out the filter to reuse it (I didn't think of buying a spare).
There's a black connector a couple of inches away from the carb which I assume is a one way valve (but I'm not really sure what it is as it doesn't show up in the tank picture on the Troy-Bilt web site).
That it pulled out cleanly doesn't mean anything. If it pulled out with several inches or more, then that one would be the pickup. But the pickup can break right at the tank, so it will can come right out cleanly, so that isn't an indicator.
Just look at the old hoses. The one with the filter is the pickup line. I recall some black thing on my Troybilt weed whacker/edger. I think it really is just a hose connector. No need for a check valve that I'm aware of. But why they needed that connector, IDK
The nipples on the carb will be different sizes , as the hoses are . Look inside the tank , either the filter (if there is one) should either be on the end of the blue hose or rattling around free if it was on the yellow . That black device may be the filter , if so there is probably some kind of device inside the tank too to keep the hose on the bottom . It's only hard to figger out the first time ... unlike the chain oil pump plumbing on a 50 year old Homelite Super 2 chainsaw !
It isn't something you can squeeze is it? Some have a primer bulb.
This Troy-Bilt cultivator has crummy rubber parts because that thumb sized primer bulb cracked & leaked fuel but it was easy to replace so I didn't mention it until you said that.
The hoses are still inside the tank where looking inside seems to have only the yellow (larger) hose coiled up with the thumbnail sized filter on it.
The replacement hoses are "Arnold Fuel Lines" "variety pack" P/N
490-240-0008 which say "For engines 2011 and prior" of size 3/32" ID (4.8mm) by 3/16" OD (2.4mm) by 1' long (30.5cm) 1/16" ID (3.2mm) by 1/8th OD (1.6mm) by 1' long (30.5cm)
The yellow hose was connected to the ceramic filter inside the gas tank. There was also a black end to end hose connector inside the gas tank. There was nothing else inside the gas tank.
The filter is a rather clean white knob of rounded ceramic with a T-shaped circular metal weight with a hole in the middle of the tube which has a tube that went on the yellow hose.
The gas has to go through the ceramic filter before it can get to the hole in the metal tube that goes onto the yellow hose.
The green hose went into the smaller hole in the plastic gas tank. That green hose I guess had a black connector on it as there was nothing else inside the gas tank but that small black end to end hose connector.
I am in the middle of the task where I see now why people just buy a new gas tank with the hoses already attached. You can't do anything from the inside because of the bend of the filler in the tank. And you can't push the yellow hose through the hole without drilling it out first.
What I did though was shave the last quarter inch OD of the yellow hose so that it stuck out into the inside of the tank where I could pull the hose through using a long pair of slightly curved 12 inch surgical tweezers.
Then it was a PITA to shove the filter onto that hose with both ends of the hose dangling outside the gas tank.
Same with shoving that black plastic connector on the end of the smaller OD hose (although I'm not sure what that black connector that I found inside the gas tank does except prevent that smaller hose from pulling out of the tank from the outside).
My first mistake was to put the parts on first and then try to wend the hose UP out of the gas tank but you just can't get a straight shot due to the curved neck of the gas tank. So I had to do it twice.
The ONLY way you're going to feed those hoses (without drilling out the holes in the gas tank anyways) is from the outside in, so you need both ends of the hose dangling outside the tank to make the necessary connections.
You can if it's the right size hose. That's why I said earlier that the hose has to be the exact right size, both OD and ID.
It isn't if it's the right size hose. And if you have to shove it very hard to get it to fit, it may be too small and then crack and split later.
One end has to dangle out the fill opening to get the filter on. The other end will always be outside, it goes to the carb.
I bet the whole thing would be a lot easier if you bought the hoses from Troybilt or similar, ie a direct fit, not the HD stuff that's supposed to fit a variety of widgets. I bought my hose from China, after carefully measuring and trying to find the right ones. I got ones that worked better than your experience, but I don't think they were exactly right either. That reminds me, I have a carb rebuild kit that showed up, I have to put that on mine. It never ends.
The ID is more of a problem now than is the OD since the smaller OD (blue) new hose went into the tank easily and the larger OD new hose (yellow) had to be pulled through. The OD is so tight on the larger yellow hose that I don't think gas will leak out. But gas could leak out of the smaller blue hose but not much since both holes are on the top of the gas tank neck.
The ID is too small on both hoses and by a lot!
The new hose ID is so tiny that it's almost impossible to get the nipples onto the hose but I didn't have any choice at Home Depot when I bought them.
This guy must have bought the right size ID hoses because they went on easily whereas mine took a really long time to finally get on the nipple.
I assume it went on the return line only because it couldn't have been on the supply line but what good would it do inside the tank except act as a stop to prevent the return line from pulling out of the gas tank?
I have no idea what the guy did about the gas filter nor why he used a sharpened chopstick to ream the smaller return line hole which is the one closest to the engine.
The larger hole (further from the engine for the supply line) didn't need reaming but this video seems to show he used the same hose for both (which may be the case for my originals too as it's hard to tell their original size).
I'm beginning to think both hoses are the same ID & OD but I don't have that luxury since the parts I bought from Home Depot were two different sizes.
This video shows an inside view of the gas tank where the green return line doesn't have anything on the end of it as it just sticks into the tank about a half inch so I'm not sure what that black plastic connector was doing inside the gas tank now.
He fed the hoses from the INSIDE of the tank outward using a wire trick
I finally gave up on that small hose that came with the Arnold Fuel Lines "variety pack" (PN 490-240-0008) which Home Depot sells for this purpose Yellow 3/32" ID (4.8mm) by 3/16" OD (2.4mm) by 1' long (30.5cm) Blue 1/16" ID (3.2mm) by 1/8" OD (1.6mm) by 1' long (30.5cm)
In the future I would suggest a 10 foot roll of the Everbilt fuel line instead of the Arnold kit given you need two feet of the same diameter.
Tomorrow I will test it out on a garden plot after checking the oil as it says it takes 80ml of oil but I've dripped most of the oil out by all the tipping over where there is no dipstick so I have it draining now so that I can put in a measured 80ml of oil.
Ah Grasshopper , I forgot to suggest one other trick ... Feed a wire thru the hole from the outside , then insert the end (coming from the inside) of the wire into the end of the hose . Push hose and wire in until the end of the hose comes out the hole with the wire . I suggested in an earlier post about cutting the end of the hose in a long taper to make it easier to get started in the hole ...
Did you look inside the connector? Try to pass a wire through it? Mine was just a connector, open.
On mine they are definitely different size hoses.
Thanks for letting me know that the Arnold stuff doesn't fit. I wasn't aware that HD had it when I was looking for hoses and as I said, I got mine from China. But I found out later that HD had some kind of assortment that was supposed to fit many engines. IDK if it was Arnold, but probably it was. Now I know if I need hose again that doesn't work. Another factor is how long they last. The China stuff lasted maybe two years before breaking again. I would hope the Arnold stuff is better. That's another factor, not only the size but if it lasts. I guess the best thing is to pay some more $$ and get the official Troy-Bilt hoses.
Definitely. Mine is the same as was yours. The black mystery part is just an end to end plastic hose connector. I put the "spare" back inside the gas tank (for want of a better place).
The hoses need to be a tight fit because they're well below the fill line.
For whatever reason, the return hole seems slightly smaller but maybe it just seemed smaller because the green hose had welded itself to the hole. A 7/64" drill bit (2.78mm) seems to have cleaned it out though.
What I didn't know then but I now know is that both hoses are the same.
3/32" ID by 3/16" OD by about a foot longA slightly larger ID would make it a lot easier but you can't use a slightly larger OD as anything bigger will never make it into the two existing holes.
I ended up reaming the filter end with the 7/64" drill bit twirled by hand.
If I were to do it again, my strong recommendation would be to forget the Arnold kit because you get 10 feet of the right hose for almost the same amount rather than 1 foot of the right hose & 1 foot of the wrong hose.
The pull by wire trick might work so I'd want to try it the next time but shaving the OD with a knife and pushing with needlenose pliers until enough is sticking inside to pull with long-nose pliers works.
It's one of those jobs where I get frustrated because patience isn't one of my virtues. I hate spending fifteen minutes just getting one end of one hose through a small hole for example, and then another fifteen minutes getting that hose out of the gas tank and then another fifteen minutes just pushing the filter onto the end of the hose and yet another fifteen minutes just pushing the end of the hose onto the carb nipple.
My wife watched from the window and when I came inside she asked me "What took you so long?"
When I cursed Troy-Bilt, she let it go at that as she's used to me blaming the manufacturer for putting what I think were terrible hoses on the thing.
I don't know how old it is but I'd guess about five years it has been in storage but it's been stored inside so I don't know why the hoses crumbled.
How long do yours last?
The only way the Arnold kit is going to work is if you buy two of them. Even so, it seems the return line gas tank hole is ever so slightly smaller so I'm still not perfectly sure they're supposed to be the same OD & ID.
I ended up with using the larger Arnold hose for the supply line (the hole furthest from the engine) and the Everbilt hose for the return line.
The holes are below the gas tank fill line so they need to be a tight fit. It's a dumb design if you ask me (but nobody asked).
I have no experience with this but I agree that if they only last a few years that they are crap since a (Japanese) car fuel line lasts a decade.
As someone said it's only hard when you first do it where I think I could halve the time in the second attempt if I remember all that I did.
I'd use the wire next time to pull the hose through the gas tank instead of pushing it in and pulling it with longnose pliers.
And I'd try to get a slightly larger ID than 3/32" but I don't think there's any way anything larger than a 3/16" OD would fit into the gas tank holes.
It would be nice to hear from everyone regarding how long your lines last.
The other problem I have with this cultivator is that it starts nicely on choke and it runs ok on position 2 but I can't get it to not stall on position 3 (wide open throttle).
Also the tines churn whether or not I press the handle so there's a pull wire adjustment I need to make somewhere.
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