Hello,

I just bought a 323f 1.8 16V -90 in order to use it for 24h endurance racing

When removing the left rear wheel I saw what you can see in the attached photo:
A rusty steel pipe (1) that's hanging loose. It seems to have been snapped but I don't know where it was connected.
Hose 2 was connected to cylindrical plastic thing 3, but as soon as I touched the hose the plastic part snapped.

So what is 1 and 3? What's X?

The car runs great by the way.

PS Does anyone know where I can find a repair manual or parts lists for the car?

Cheers,
Per

You have two things with fluid back there...brakes and fuel.

Looks like some sort of brake line valve thing at x...the top part looks fuel related. They have a breather pipe and another large bore pipe that is sealed up near the filler.

Haynes manual for the same years covers most of the mechanical stuff, BG chassis and running gear in the saloon and hatch are pretty much the same

Thanks for your help, Marc!

I believe though that it's all for the same fluid because the X is like a three way connection where one hose leads to #3 and one is the steel pipe #1. Maybe a breather system or environmental thing for the fuel tank?

I believe that this is weight regulator for brake force, but i'm not sure you'll got to check it..
Some cars have it,some don't...
Its for regulating the force on the rear brakes so when there's load on the rear of the car the brakes bite is stronger, when there's noone at the back the brakes are looser so they don't block the wheel..
Maybe im wrong, but is one picture thou... can't realy orientate verry well..

Follow the hoses coming out of it? My first thought was it's just a T-piece to send brake fluid to both rear calipers, but I'm not that familiar with the BG chassis

Well, all hoses a fuel related.

#1 enters the top of the fuel tank.

A hose, probably connected to #3, continues forward of the car but I can't see where it ends.

Perhaps a system that takes care of fuel vapor and leads it back to the fuel tank?

Yes, fuel return back to the tank...if you pull the plastic cover off in the rear wheelarch you'll see a few pipes with the filler, one big fat one is sealed at the top, with smaller pipes coming from the bottom of it, think that's vapour related.

Its the vapour trap and breather for the fuel tank, one leads back to the engine bay, one leads to the fuel filler cap area.There is also a valve in there somewhere that allows any fuel in the filler pipe to breathe, so as not to cause a vaccum in the case of an overfill.
I figured all this out when mine, like yours, all fell apart, and I had a constant smell of fuel even though I could never find a leak. I had to make a new system out of stainless steel and small bore copper pipe. I don't know if it worked, but I couldn't smell petrol anymore!

You can buy the filler complete with breather pipes etc new for about £80