Can you make your own injector lines?

I've got a 1990 TAMD31 A in a cute little Shamrock 20 that's been parked in a garage for 20 years; the engine only has 1,926 hours on it (barely broken in for a diesel!), but the injector lines have big rust flakes coming off them. Scared to go to sea like that, but new injector lines are $175 each.

Has anyone ever made their own injector lines with automotive hydraulic brake line? I can remove the fittings off the Volvo factory injector lines and silver-solder them onto the new brake lines, but are the brake lines high-pressure enough to handle injection pump pressure?

Alternately, does anyone know of an economical source for those injector lines? I can get similar lines for a Cummins MTA6 engine at the local truck repair parts shop for about $45 each, so it seems the Volvo lines are way overpriced.

Thanks for any answers,

With Warm Aloha, Tim

Silver solder is generally used with stainless material.----Yes , stainless tubing is an option.----And I think brake lines can easily handle fuel pressure too.

Hi Tim - Although it seems doable, the in-line injection pumps on those pre-electronic diesels are very specifically timed and metered to the 1/1000 of a second and the injection lines need to be a certain length. Although you could fabricate something that resembles what was there, it would not be exact and you would be risking damage to more expensive components. The Cummins lines are likely cheaper simply due to the fact there are more engines in production in a variety of applications, trucks/heavy equipment/tractors etc. unlike the Volvos. Hope this helps.

I would suggest a visit to the local injector pump repair shop....and ask if they can fabricate some replacements for you. another option may be a salvage yard.

I think you will find the brake tubing won't hold up, assuming you can find some of the proper size...brazing the fittings isn't hard, you just have to be proactive to eliminate all of the oxide crap that will built up on the inside...cleaning it out afterwards usually doesn't work very well.

If there is an industrial or farm version of the engine, then that would be a cheaper place to buy lines. Yes you can make new lines. The length isn't that critical. Think of the tube filled with a series of single charges. Each time the injector pump fires, a new charge is added to the tube. That's why bleeding is critical in injector pump engines. If there is air in the tube, the air compresses instead of passing the charges along. As the air compresses, the pressure goes down in the tube. The pressure is usually too low to open the injector.