Snowmobile Fuel Tank Leak

I had a newer Skidoo in my shop recently with a fuel leak.  Most snowmobiles have a plastic gas tank with a flexible fuel pickup on the bottom of the tank.  This fuel pickup exits the tank on the end and is sealed with a rubber grommet.  In this first photo you can see that it is wet around the grommet.

Here is the fuel line fitting with the old grommet.  The left end gets connected to the line going to the fuel pump.  The right end is inside the tank and has the flexible pickup connected to it.  You can see in the photo that the grommet is cracked and broken.  Closer inspection showed that someone had squeezed and pulled on it with a pair of pliers sometime in the past.

If I had a new grommet this would be a quick easy thing to fix.  Unfortunately there is no local Skidoo dealer to buy parts from and even if there was the dealers never seem to have the part you need in stock.  While I was contemplating waiting two weeks for a new part to arrive, I stepped on something on the floor of my shop.  I looked down to see what it was and I discovered a vibration isolator left over from an old refrigeration compressor that I worked on last week.

I used a razor knife to cut the the rubber mount in half and it was just the right size to replace the bad fuel line grommet.  I pressed it into the tank, reconnected the lines, and put the machine back together. I was very happy to avoid waiting for new parts.