I just screwed myself

[Belgian951]

Just want to vent but I just screwed myself

I wanted to measure the fuel pressure on my 944 turbo. So I unscrewed the rail cap, removed it and the little ball inside. I tried to attach my meter, but the fittings weren't the right size. So I screwed the rail cap back on with the ball inside, wanting to go to the store to get the fitting. Then I thought, I should probably torque this rail cap correctly - 12 Nm.

Took my torque wrench, set it at 12 nm, and torqued away. And torqued away, and away and away... until the damn thing snapped off.

There goes my brand new fuel rail that I bought a few months ago for 800 EUR

Ouch!!!!

Now I'll have to buy another one, buy a fuel cap, a ball, new seals for the injectors, pay for shipping, and delay my MOT again. Oh and I still need the fittings to do the damn test.


I wonder why my torque wrench didn't 'click' at 12 nm... so maybe a new torque wrench too?

[icb]

That's got to be the worst misfortune I've heard about in quite a while, it had to really hurt!
I once somehow dropped the top half of a spark plug down the hole of my first "almost new" car back in 1985
I still have no idea how I did that, or why it had no effect on the engine whatsoever, but I still remember the stomach-churning sense of horror as that Insulator disappeared down into the abyss!
I have a cheap torque wrench for non-critical jobs that does this all the time. I can't bring myself to get rid of it. I've learned to clamp the 3/8 square drive in my vise just before I use it and test it to make sure it's going to click. I have a better quality one for more critical jobs.
Maybe you could find a good used fuel rail and reach out to someone locally to get it re-plated? Or perhaps it might be possible to have a new (M12 I think) ball-cone fitting welded back on??

[Tom]

So sorry to hear that. Rooting for you to catch a break one of these days.... If the fuel rail was brand new, I'd see if you can return it. Not sure what the warranty is in Europe, but here in the US new Porsche parts come with a 2-year warranty. There's no way the threaded end should snap off like that. Unless you had a 5-foot breaker bar and put all your weight on it, and twisted the uprights into pretzels in the process, I'd say there was something wrong with the rail (and maybe a bless in disguise to discover it now). Worth a shot anyway.

[Belgian951]

I don't believe this is weldable, and I rather have an intact fuel rail.
I ordered a new one, which will probably arrive tomorrow. This way, I can at least continue as planned with the MOT.

I also sent an email asking about warranty, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
It was a standard torque wrench 10 nm - 120 nm with a 19 mm socket. I'm definitely going to retest the wrench this Wednesday in class...

[Tom]

I don't believe this is weldable, and I rather have an intact fuel rail.
I ordered a new one, which will probably arrive tomorrow. This way, I can at least continue as planned with the MOT.

I also sent an email asking about warranty, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
It was a standard torque wrench 10 nm - 120 nm with a 19 mm socket. I'm definitely going to retest the wrench this Wednesday in class...

I have to believe that it would take more force than common sense allows to snap off the threads, unless something was wrong with it. We're you cranking it with all your might?

[Thom]

Here is another vote for something wrong with the thread. First time I hear there is a torque spec for that nut which I never needed to tighten with anything else but feel.

I broke a NLA exhaust bolt on another car recently for no apparent reason except that I had put it in a box with all other rusty bolts and I suspect some tiny rusty debris were on the thread which seemed clean when I started to tighten the nut but at some point the nut felt tight and I stupidly forced it until the bolt suddenly snapped. Thankfully I was able to source a used one.

[Belgian951]

I don't believe this is weldable, and I rather have an intact fuel rail.
I ordered a new one, which will probably arrive tomorrow. This way, I can at least continue as planned with the MOT.

I also sent an email asking about warranty, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
It was a standard torque wrench 10 nm - 120 nm with a 19 mm socket. I'm definitely going to retest the wrench this Wednesday in class...

I have to believe that it would take more force than common sense allows to snap off the threads, unless something was wrong with it. We're you cranking it with all your might?

Well I wouldn't say all my might but I definitely had a moment of '12 nm shouldn't take this long'. Should've listened to my inner voice!

The last time I had a similar situation was when I removed the wheel spacers which made the bolts too long for the wheel nuts to sit flush on the wheel. This also resulted in a 'have to torque forever' situation where I turned so long until the bolts penetrated the closed nuts.

[Belgian951]

I already bought and installed a OEM Porsche fuel rail. Car is ready to go!