I have used some very fine, stainless steel, Jubilee style 'worm drive hose clamp' on smaller hoses (~10mm OD) but can't seem to find them again? ;-(
I have access to plenty of different type of hose clamp but most have large flanges and / or bolts sticking out and are much heavier (in construction) than would be needed for this role (motorcycle fuel hoses). Std clips are about 9mm wide, what I am looking for were more like 3-4 mm?
The bike typically came with the little wire clip with overlapping loops at the ends but they don't hold quite as well as a more positive acting clip and they do need to be removed now and again.
Any pointers to where I can get the smaller Jubilee style clips / clamps please ... or an effective alternative?
Thanks for those Andy, they do look like the sort of thing I'm talking about. ;-)
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The largest they do is 3/8" (9.5mm) and *might* be big enough for our needs.
Oetiker do do a few around that size so if the 3/8" isn't big enough we should be able to get a bigger size and at 5mm wide and .4mm thick, should be much better than the std offerings. ;-)
Thanks for that Andrew, that's a different approach.
Spookily, a couple of rolls off ss 'safety wire' they use for security wiring nuts and bolts on racing machines arrived here yesterday morning with that sort of use in mind (although more with the lose ends twisted together to give the tension and locking and then folded flat once done). ;-)
I have previously (and very successfully) used fairly fine wire (often bright tinned copper) for retaining small hoses on the things like RC boat cooling and fuel hoses and in emergencies on other hoses.
(This sort of technique but with more turns at the end).
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In fact, I bought the wire to do exactly as the tool you linked to provides on the rubber hose that connects to my remote fuel tank and was going to cover that with some self gluing heat shrink, but even at .7mm I think it's a bit too heavy *for that diameter of hose*).
As you say, shouldn't be too tricky to make ...
This looks like the ideal usage of the tool, even though it starts off looking a bit like 'a cat's cradle'. ;-)
I now use a gadget which uses any sort of wire which is suitable for the job. You put a double loop of your chosen wire round the object, the gadget then tightens the loop and once sufficiently tight, you simply fold the wire over and cut it off. It is a single use system, so needs to be repeated with fresh wire each time it is disturbed. You don't need to keep various sizes of clip, just various OD / types of wire.
Much more secure than a Jubilee or other type of clip and can be made to be much tighter than a normal clip. There are various designs of the DIY gadget on Youtube, plus a ready made one.
That is the tool/method I had in mind. I made one of a similar design to that. It is now the only type of clip I use, instead of both the Jubilee and the over-lapping screw tightened camp. Both of the latter tend to bunch up the pipe at one point, so it leaks and often the Jubilee threads strip.
A bit of fabric tape sometimes to reinforce the pipe, plus a bit of wire and the tool are all that is needed, to get a joint as tight as you like.
This looks one of the most simple and may be better suited to the smaller hoses I am talking about here.
Yeah, I think that's the one Andrew linked to elsewhere, the 'Clamptite'?
For the size of these hoses (10mm OD) and on fairly soft rubber, I think I could make a sufficiently good job using some pliers.
Basically, you just need to apply enough grip by any clamp to press the inner face of the hose over the grooves / humps on the male pipe connector and that should be enough to stop the hose from being easily pulled off. The seal is made by the tight fit of the hose over the tap / tank outlet.
To do that I think the key would be the right gauge of (ideally ss) wire. It needs to be thin / flexible enough to follow the circumference of the hose easily but yet stiff enough to maintain the 'hooks' under tension.
I used to use the '2 - 3 turns of wire round a hose and then twist the two ends together' technique on smaller / typically silicone fuel / water-cooling hoses on RC boats and generally used some bright tinned copper wire I used for making links on PCB's and the like?
It wasn't very 'strong' in a single part but wound just enough turns round the hose pre twisting gave quite a bit of mechanical advantage and then practice determined how tight you could / needed to twist the ends together before it snapped. In practice it was more like bundling something up with string with a Spanish windlass providing the 'knot'. ;-)
I think for hoses under any sort of positive pressure you need at least one *complete* turn round the hose (so two turns in total) to avoid the 'hump' you typically get as the loop sits up on the other part of the wire.
Whilst this sort of solution would be good for the hose ends that generally stay put but on this bike you have to take the tank off to do many things (like access the spark plugs or even top up the coolant) and to do that you have to disconnect the hoses from one end or the other (tank or remote tap). The tank end has reasonable access (once the tank is off) but the tap end is pretty cramped, with 4 hoses coming in from 3 directions (Main, Reserve, Out and vacuum).
Hence the need for something easy to (repeatedly) apply and release and the right 'scale' for these fairly small hoses.
I can remember seeing the micro Jubilee clips on a fuel hose years ago (and I was impressed with them at the time) but it may have been on my Morris Minor van! ;-)
Can you not fit cone ended couplings to the tank, so that the barb and one part of the fitting comes off leaving the other part on the tank. 1/4" BSP male / female coupler should do it.
I believe that was a problem with the inlet manifold rubbers on this bike and older / less supple rubbers. The (tin) clamps did have an overlap but didn't seem to clamp and seal the older rubbers (as you said).
I've seen that done with Jubilee clips etc.
Or several gauges of wire, depending on the rage of jobs you are covering?
But no so handy in the field if you have to release and re connect a joint (without the tool and some wire ... ok in a car, not so convenient on a motorbike).
And then you have access. You can fit a Jubilee clip to a hose and push the hose in place and then only need to be able to get a driver of some sort in to be able to do it up (if you do it up slightly before fitting and use a hex driver you don't even need to hold it still).
1) The fittings that bolt into the tank also carry the fuel filters.
2) They would have to be self sealing or you would still have to drain the tank down to do any such work.
3) The reserve tank outlet is pretty low and the hose then has to go off via a channel moulded into the airbox to get to the tap.
Because the main outlet from the tank has quite a bit of space under / around it I did consider some sort of inline QR coupling, but there wouldn't be any advantage if we can't do something similar with the reserve. ;-(
The only other solution would be to re-route the reserve outlet back under the tank using a rigid hose (thinner) and then to a QR coupling?
Basically you need to be able to release the tank and move it back and up sufficiently to be able to get to any coupling etc. ;-(
I made it, partially on the lathe, a tapered nose, then steel tube and threaded rod. Copied from the photo of the commercial version.
There is a much less intricate version to DIY, which I intend to build and test. A problem I noted with mine, was that it was difficult to get it to hold the two wire ends tightly enough. They tend to slip once you begin tightening with the screw. It does need around 45 degrees of freedom of axial rotation around the pipe, to finally lock the wire tension once tight, so you need to allow for that when you begin the tightening stage.
Yeah, I think their budget models are made like that.
Which one, OOI?
On most of the videos they take a couple of turns round the rear crosspin and then twist the two ends together over the top of the tool? (You know, the twisting I mentioned I do on the finer wire / hoses that can get it all *very* tight). ;-)
I saw one where they actually wound up the loose ends as part of the tensioning process.
And why it would be lees practical as a solution for even the permanent ends on this particular bike.
I can see how / why it would be good to have one of the tools 'in general' though, especially for those times when you don't have anything else available or where it would suit better (eg, where you want a more slimline solution).
Ancient R100 ex police 1982, it now has historical plates which mean about $40 odd rego PA or something near (NSW Australia)instead of $300 or $400.00 or so but you are limited to club rides and 60 more days if you have logbook system.
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