I was smelling gas fumes in the passenger compartment coming from the passenger side floorboard and figured it was the infamous broken Y Connector syndrome. There is plastic/nylon Y Connector attached to the Carbon Filter in the Fuel Vapor Recovery System that breaks on a regular basis. David Chamberland, on the 928 Rennlist, has produced some stainless steel versions of this connector. When he posted to the list that he was getting a new batch made, I asked him to send me one.

The Y Connector located in the passenger side wheel well under the wheel well cover. I jacked up the front passenger side and removed the wheel. The wheel well cover was held in place by three 8 mm bolts, three 10 mm bolts, and one 10 mm nut. Once all the bolts were removed I had to pull the wheel well cover loose from the wheel well lip and twist it to get it out.

Once the cover was removed I saw that the Y Connector was indeed broken. In fact when I moved the hose, I noticed it was broken in two places and when I tried to pull the remaining tube from the hose it also broke, leaving me with three hoses with broken stubs in them.

To removed the stubs, I first used pliers to squeeze the end of the hose (to break the seal), then screwed a lag bolt into the hose with the hose clamp tightened to stop the stub from spinning. I then loosened the hose clamp, sprayed in a little lubricant (soap and water in a spray bottle), and pulled the lag bolt out with the stub still attached. I had to use a smaller lag bolt for the bottom hose, as it was a smaller diameter. The smaller stub came out a little easier then the larger diameter ones.

I then took the new Y and pushed it into the hoses, starting with the single large end then the other large end, and the small end last. The Y looked a lot nicer then the old one and I hope it won't ever break.

I then replaced the wheel cover (lots of twisting and pushing), wheel, and lowered the car off the jack (and jack stand). The total time was 1.5 hours (with a lot of time just finding the right size lag bolt) and the cost of the Y Connector was $17.

Broken Y Connector

New Y Connector

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